With friends like Hemlock

The BBQ Pit
61

What…the…fuck.

I would hope that my friends would tell me such a thing. I cannot conceive of what friendship means if not sharing interest in each others life, and feeling genuine concern for another’s “psychic injuries” in direct proportion to the level of the friendship. Your ability to sympathize with a stranger but ignore your friend is fucking amazing. What exactly is special about friendship, then? That you would just know the guy’s name? That you went to high school with him? Some guy you were talking to on the subway this morning?

1. I believe in loyalty to friends. Until that loyalty demands you act to possibly amend a situation which could be embarrasing or emotionally painful. Then you run away from potential conflict. I believe this sort of friendship is amended with the words, “fair weather.”

2. I believe that loyalty requires one, as far as is humanly possibly, to stay the hell out of one’s friends’ other relationships. Loyalty requires one stays away?? In what Ryanesque sense is that? (thanks Fenris for the new verb!even if we do seem to disagree here). It seems to me that you are respecting the interests of the stranger over the interests of your friend.

3. I believe that we should not violate the privacy of others without damn good reason. Violate privacy? It isn’t like you are watching him take a shit or read his medical records, you’re passing information to him that he would find useful in making a very real decision. Damn good reason? How about: he’s your friend. Privacy? With my friendships come a cerain level of intimacy that allows us to tread closer to home than the average bar girl or coworker (again, in direct proportion to the level of that friendship). “With friends like Hemlock?” With friends like this, who needs the word “friend”? It doesn’t seem to denote any special relationship, any privilege of information, any level of concern. Only a nebulous “loyalty” which amounts to ignoring someone’s potentially painful or embarassing situations.

Part of being a grown-up is learning to live with embarrassment. Part of being a friend is looking out for each other. “Gee, Phil, your fly is down.” I suppose you wouldn’t say that to save him embarassment; after all, maybe he wants his fly down, and even if he doesn’t, he should know how to handle embarassment. :rolleyes: “Phil, your girlfriend is cheating on you.” I suppose you wouldn’t say that because it is none of your business. And he’s a big boy, anyway, right?

And yes, it is a violation of her privacy. She hasn’t told you - that means as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you don’t know. We’re not talking about the rest of the world. We’re talking about his friend. That, to most people, automatically means something more special that most other things. That is the very essence behind the word “friend” as opposed to “some guy I know.”

62

Well put, erislover. Very well put.

Years ago, some old friends I hang out with were laughing behind the backs of one girl, who was wearing her clothes WAY too tight. (She had gained weight, and was in denial about it.) It pissed me off that people were laughing behind her back. So, I tried my best to hint and suggest to the girl that maybe some new, looser clothing styles were a good idea.

Of course, she didn’t like hearing that, of course, I could have phrased it better. But I stand by what I did. She was my friend. I hated hearing people laugh at her behind her back. I wanted to spare her the embarrasment, I wanted her to make at least an informed choice about what clothes she wears. Sure, it’s HER choice, why not let it be INFORMED? (And I’ll add here, I am not a thin waif type, and understand all too well how crappy it is to gain weight and struggle to fit into my clothes.)

I expect my friends to tell me when I am on the brink of making a fool of myself, or am being lied to, or whatever. One thing that I have a really hard time forgiving is when someone admits, “Yeah, we all saw you were making a fool of yourself, but we kept on letting you do it, we didn’t want to say anything.” GUTLESS!!! That’s gutless. I expect much better from my friends.

63

I think Hemlock was right to tell this guy. Being of another gender - and regardless of “brain chemistry” or whatever, having a penis makes you in a sexual context a man - and that is a far bigger deal than if Mary had had an abortion (no one’s business but her own) used to be a prostitute (no one’s business but her own) and if she isn’t upfront with him from the very start - of the relationship, not the friendship, ie when it startd to get physical - then I think he should have been told.

Yeah it might have been better to tell him face to face, but it sounds like email was chosen to save the guy’s embarrassment, rather than through cowardice.

Maybe it’s different for bisexuals who are attracted to people of both gender, but if I found out that I’d been seeing a man who was originally a woman - pre-op/post-op/whatever - I would be angry, betrayed, shocked, horrified, and repulsed.

And I’m sorry if that’s perceived as prejudiced, unfair to transgender people, small-minded, narrow-minded, or whatever. It’s how I would feel sexually. Oh and yeah jump on me as usual for the “some of my best friends… etc” line, but I did know a guy at college who was transgender (dressed and lived as woman but didn’t want the op). And he was a lovely, lovely guy. And he was open about his gender orientation, and would never have deceived anyone, and hopefully as a result of that he is now in an honest and fulfilling relationship with the partner of his choice. Not like Mary.

Ditto

64

All I can say, yosemitebabe, is hell yes.

65

FWIW, I did an informal poll in the office this morning. Not a representative sample of the population–just a half-dozen guys, all from North America, all hetero. Five I would characterize as open-minded, culturally sensitive, and not homophobic; the other one is a rabid fundamentalist Christian who openly admits his homophobia.

All agreed that they would want to be told if they were in Bob’s situation. The rabid fundamentalist went so far as to say that if I even suspected that he was in such a situation and I didn’t tell him, he would kick my ass, but then rabid fundamentalists are like that.:wink:

I would have told him too. I would probably have asked him if he was aware of the rumour, rather than present it as a fact. I know, rumour-mongering is bad, but this one concerns him. If he said “yeah, and it’s no problem,” I would say “cool.” If we were really friends, he wouldn’t be angry that I didn’t mind my own business about it.

66

Are you saying I am a sock puppet?! Frankly, I’m dumbfounded if that is the case, since I have well over 1,000 posts, going back quite awhile now, but I digress.

Otto, I’m trying damn hard not to make this personal, but you are making that pretty difficult. As other posters have already established, someone with a penis is a MAN, regardless of what you, I, themselves or anyone else calls them.
Apart from some of their logical inconsistencies, your posts show that you think non-conformism is the ultimate virtue. Au contraire. If Bob knew about Mary and thought it was okay, then I would agree. But the whole point of all this is that he doesn’t know. (And please don’t repeat the tired saw that “nobody knows for certain what Bob does/doesn’t know.” Hemlock is his friend, and it stands to reason that he knows what Bob does/doesn’t know a lot better than any of us.)
But on conformism, it might come as a real shock to you, but the world is not made up of graduates of UC-Berkely or Evergreen State. Some, in fact most, people do care what others think of them. It’s as much a part of life as death and taxes. Besides, did it ever occur to you that the bar patrons might be laughing at Bob not because he’s with a man, but because he thinks Mary is a woman?
Given that, it is NOT reasonable to expect Bob to just shrug off Mary’s gender. Mary is lying and deceiving him by withholding his true identity. Mary has the right to live his/her life however he/she wishes, but as I said before, he absolutely DOES NOT have the right to expect others to casually go along with it. Bob has as much right to choose his lifestyle as does Mary, including whether he want a “ladyboy” in it or not. A relationship, even a casual one, built on deception is inherently unfair and exploitative

I’m totally in agreement with erislover and yosemitebabe so far on this one, and I think Hemlock has answered his critics with admirable retraint.

67

As I stated in my post, I don’t believe friendship allows you to violate another’s privacy, or to repeat something you do not know to be fact. It’s that simple.

You’re reading an awful lot into my statement, Erislover. See my statement above. There are certain values that trump relationships. One of them is privacy, which trumps most things unless my friend is going to suffer a helluva lot more than embarrassment.

Yes, I am. See above. And I do believe that grown-up friends stay the hell out of meddling in their friend’s relationships, until asked to do so. And even asking doesn’t trump privacy.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. It’s not his privacy that’s being violated - it’s a strangers privacy. *

As to the fly being down - what you seem to be missing is that I don’t have to harm another to tell him that. Now as for the girlfriend - unless I have incontrovertible evidence of the cheating, you’re damn right I don’t say anything, and I would hope you wouldn’t, either. The consequences of being wrong aren’t merely disastrous for him, but for the girlfriend - whose privacy you had no right to violate. Now, note that I’m adding a nuance to the “psychic injury” point - yes, if there’s an existing relationship whose premises are being destroys, and you have incontrovertible evidence of the truth of the allegation, sure, you should tell him. But here there’s no existing relationship between the friend and the trans. All the friend will suffer is embarrassment. Big boys can do that. Little boys who aren’t mature enough to handle themselves can’t.

I think I’ve beaten this into submission. Friendship does not obviate one’s responsiblities to the rest of the world, and to protect the ROW’s privacy. Avoiding embarrassment isn’t good enough a reason.

Now, I could see one way around the conundrum. If the OP in that other thread, yea much bloggage ago, had the balls to say, “Y’know, I was wondering…do you think she might be trans, since she [has big hands] [an adam’s apple] [is so tall] [all of the above and more]?” That’s ok, because it’s based on what anyone can see. What is not ok is spreading rumors, which by their nature violate privacy. See the connection?

I might even buy his going the indirect e-mail route, if the e-mail said no more than what is obvious to the naked eye. When you’re dealing with private matters, presenting evidence is fine. Presenting conclusions isn’t.

68

erislover, that was extremely well said.

It’s a shame to see people get mired in the ancillary issues here to such an extent that they come right out and say that their willingness to spare a friend emotional distress is superceded by their desire allow a stranger to keep a secret from that friend. I wonder if people would be so quick take up that position if the secret were something more mundane but equally important.

And for people like Otto who attempt cloud the issue by declaring that Mary is a woman [and it would follow that there is no secret being kept]: is your take on the matter so important to you that you are willing to twist facts to support it? Out of respect, it’s perfectly correct to refer to Mary as a ‘she’ in social situations; but she is not a biological woman. Medically speaking, men are born with an X & Y chromosome, woman with two X chromosomes, and transgendered persons an allotment of chromosomes more or less than a pair. While the story clearly states she was born male, I suppose there is a slim chance that her chromosomal makeup is actually transgender; but she was not born female.

Just as Mary has the right to live as the gender she chooses and pursue relationships with the gender she finds attractive, her partners are entitled to know she: is never going to be able to bear children, is not [at present] capable of vaginal intercourse, lacks a full compliment of female physical characteristics while still retaining a difficult to overlook penis. Why is this not a two way street? While it would seem Mary has the full picture, Bob is left not knowing that pleasing his new interest would involve stroking a penis rather than a clitoris.

69

What a trainwreck of a thread…

Monty, observing that a person is taller than the average run of her gender/race is not racist. I’m 5’8", and I felt like Wilt Chamberlain when I was in Thailand. Thais tend to be shorter than Westerners; that’s not racist.

The term “lady-boy” is not offensive. It’s a Thai term used to describe transexuals, who are accepted in Thai society. Take off your cultural blinkers, folks.

A M2F transexual who has had the full works done is a woman, full stop. Gender identity is a highly complicated matter, and there is a great deal of the etiology of gender dysphoria that we do not yet understand. That said, that which makes us identify as a man or a woman is deeply innate and cannot be limited to outward appearance. If you identify as a woman, if you have the feelings and psyche of a woman, then the plumbing you were born with is unimportant. My own take is that eventually medical science will discover the genetic triggers that create gender in the brain and genitals in the body are separate and become mismatched in some cases, creating transexuals. In my view, gender reassignment surgery is the correction of a birth defect, putting right something that was wrong.

To tell or not to tell… I’d do nothing on the basis of rumor, which seems to be all that Hemlock has to go on. Repeating gossip always leads to unpleasant consequences for all concerned.

Now let us stipulate that Hemlock knows for an ironclad fact that Mary used to be Fred: should he tell Bob? My tactic would be to let Mary, nee Fred, know that the jig is up and that she owes Bob the courtesy of telling him the truth. Then I’d stay out of it.

If he absolutely MUST tell Bob directly, then Hemlock needs to cowboy up and tell Bob face to face. Anonymous letters are the malicious work of a coward.

70

As for me, I feel very strongly that what I’ve got in my underpants is my own business. If there were anything out of the ordinary down there I would want to keep it strictly on a need-to-know basis. And the only person I would consider as having the need-to-know would be the person I was about to have sex with.

Now, I might define “about to have sex with” differently depending on just how usual or extreme my condition was – “By the way, I’ve got a piercing” could probably wait until we were at the undressing stage, while “By the way, I grew up in a country that practices FGM” would probably be better introduced as soon as it became apparent that we were experiencing mutual sexual desire. But the need-to-know does not extend to anyone who ever wanted to have sex with me, anyone who I ever kissed, or anyone who thought I looked hot in a tight dress. If Mary does not intend to have sex with Bob, then he does not have the right or need to know and she has the right to keep her privates private.

Would you feel the same way if Hemlock had decided to jump Mary outside the bar and beat her bloody to teach her a lesson about deceiving his friends? I suspect not. I certainly hope not. While the desire to help one’s friends is admirable, it is possible to do things that are very, very wrong even with this admirable motive.

If Hemlock just could not keep himself from getting involved (and getting involved in other people’s romantic situations is almost never a good idea, and is almost never appreciated by the parties involved), he should have talked to Mary before spreading gossip about her. While Hemlock seems certain that Mary was in fact born a man, I do not see how he can be similarly certain that she is not a post-op. “Jim says that Jim’s wife says that Mary hasn’t had the operation” is hardly solid proof. Hemlock also cannot be certain that Mary hasn’t already discussed the subject with Bob. He cannot be certain that Mary didn’t bother to tell Bob simply because she assumed that everyone already knows all about her. But he didn’t both to go right to the source for answers, instead he decided to anonymously pass on third-hand gossip – in the process making himself guilty of the very thing he has accused Mary of, dishonesty.

71

You can call Hemlock cowardly, intrusive, a buttinski, insensitive, racist, sexist, close-minded, or whatever.

But from where I’m sitting, you’d have to concede that he’s also a good friend. Ignore the peanut gallery–BOB will appreciate what was done. Well done.

Quix

P.S. I’d disagree with most, if not all, of the adjectives I used in the first sentence. They were for illustrative purposes only.

72

Can we simplify this for a second?

Let’s say you went into a store with a friend you know pretty well. You go to the ice cream freezer and pick out a cherry popsicle, while your friend grabs a grape. Now, if you knew your friend did not like grape popsicles, you would probably point that out to him without thinking about it, wouldn’t you? “Bob,” you’d say, “since when did you start liking grape popsicles?”

On the other hand, if you have no knowledge whatsoever of Bob’s popsicle tastes, you might say, “Oh, so you like grape popsicles? That’s cool.”

Now, what if the popsicles were unlabelled so you didn’t know which was which but instead just had a colored stripe? And imagine there’s another patron in the store who mentions to you, “A friend of mine bought an orange striped popsicle here that was grape; he was pretty sure all of them with orange stripes were grape.” So you would go to your friend and say, “Hey Bob, that popsicle you’ve got has a orange stripe, and I heard that those are grape. Knowing how you don’t like grape, I thought you might want to ask the manager before you buy it.”

If you knew nothing of Bob’s preferences, reasonably you might say the same thing, because you’d expect the vast majority of people to think an orange stripe would indicate an orange popsicle.

I know very well that people are not popsicles. Popsicles are morally indifferent. Popsicles do not have feelings. (Awaits someone parading popsicle rights shortly…) But if you have reason to believe your friend is completely unaware of information that could potentially be important to him, is it better to tell him or to let him continue in his ignorance? Well, it’s true that some people would rather be blissfully ignorant. Me, I’d rather know the truth and deal with reality–“proper etiquette” be damned so long as I was told with the respect and sensitivity that the subject entitled. Straightforward talk for two minutes is less harmful than weeks or months of hushed whispers and paranoia.

I do not agree with the method Hemlock chose to tell Bob. I wonder in the back of my mind if he he has a deep-seated prejudice that caused him to act as he did. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and hope not. However, in the popsicle case, we would consider it silly if one were to pass an anonymous note; while in the real, serious example, it is lacking in tact (IMHO) because of the sensitivity of the matter and feelings involved. It would have been better to ask Bob privately if he was aware of the rumor (not assuming its validity, but recognizing it as possible), making clear that it is none of your business who he is involved with, just that you are concerned as his friend that he may have been deceived.

73

But don’t you see, Bob cannot ask for interference in this manner. “Gee, Hemlock, do you know if Mary has a penis?” Bob is not making educated decisions.

But don’t you see that not telling Bob harms him, too? Many people have expressed that they would feel betrayed. Now, I don’t know about you, but a feeling of betrayal is a little bit more important than simple embarassment. But even at that, if it is assumed that Bob won’t like Mary like this (something I think Hemlock could know well enough to rule out healthy skepticism) then the end result of this flirtation is: someone is going to get hurt. Period. As a friend, I would do what I could to lessen the pain of my friend.

I don’t know, Oxy, that seems to be too high of a standard IMO. I would tell my friend. Yes, I would qualify it and say, “Now, I don’t know this for sure, but (etc)” or something similar, but I would always feel my friend needs to make the best decision possible, and if that involves investigating rumors then so be it.

If a rumor is qualified as a rumor so that the concerned parties may investigate its factuality, then I see no harm in telling a rumor. If it is just a rumor, no privacy was violated. If it isn’t then I’ve just enabled a friend to make a more informed choice.

But even at that, I thought there were two things we were accepting. One is that Mary has a penis, and the other is that Bob wouldn’t like that if he knew it. We can run skepticism to absurd limits all we like, but face it: at some point action is required. If that action is “do nothing” and Bob gets “psychic damage” I consider you responsible for that. Period. You had the opportunity to do something and did nothing. Your inaction benefited a stranger and caused pain to your friend. I’m sorry, Oxy, but I cannot accept that.

Lamia
Why doesn’t Bob have a right to make an informed decision? Isn’t that the very foundation of choice, free will, and social interaction? If there were no one who knew but Mary then I agree, she shouldn’t tell at this stage, and when she should tell should be more of a matter of the emotional contact than the physical. But since other people are privvy to this information I think they have a responsibility to Bob to tell.

The number of players always affects the game. And that ain’t in the rulebook, it is simply true by inspection.

Well, I don’t see how the situation warrant beating the crap out of her, though I must conceed that some people could certainly wrap their minds around the idea well enough. Yes, it is possible to perform morally poor actions based on good intentions. I believe the language has a rather colorful bromide to that effect. But it is also true (to me) that context changes the moral weight of the situation. Privacy is important, but not as important as letting my friend make poor choices which will hurt him. As Oxy said, as far as the rest of the world is concerned: I don’t know. True. But as far as my friend is concerned, I do know, and that changes the situation.

74

This is funny. The only thing that you can come up with to bash me is some art book (since I’m colour-blind, I don’t normally delve into such tomes) and some some generalized statistics about tribal stature, not to mention the laughable comment about someone being taller than the norm in Thailand?

Y’all need to work on your asininity. Right now, it’s only up to the caliber of stupidity.

75

Agreed.

Betrayal by whom? Betrayal by her? To some extent, yes. If she’s being manipulative and intentionally deceiving him, well, that might be enough for betrayal, but on a pretty penny-ante scale. Nothing has happened yet, remember? They’ve flirted in bar and maybe petted a bit. Anyone who’s so emotionally committed at that stage of the game that they can manage to feel “betrayal” strikes me as immature.

If you mean betrayal by the friend - well, the friend has a way around it, as I said in my prior post. It involves honesty and the repetition only of facts, not hearsay.

“Investigating” rumors is fine - if you’re doing it yourself. Reporting facts is fine. Repeating rumors is not.

Now you lose me completely. You’re saying that friendship trumps your ethical obligation not to repeat rumors. I find that despicable, particularly since it’s so easy not to repeat the rumor. You see, repeating a rumor, rather than reporting facts, protects only one person: you. It doesn’t protect the friend. It only protects yourself from the friend’s wrath, by removing yourself from the ugly resonsibility for telling truth. That’s self-indulgent.

Reread my prior post - I’m not counselling inaction. I’m counselling a different action that doesn’t violate anyone’s privacy. Hemlock didn’t like that proposed action because it required him to put his own neck on the line. That, I believe, was self-indulgent on Hemlock’s part.

[snip]

To summarize: you can tell him what facts you know. You may not tell him about rumors. It’s not difficult. It’s just uncomfortable.

76

Monty, perhaps Hemlock coul dhave phrased it more elegantly, but it it not racist to comment that a Thai woman is unusually tall for her ethnic group. Thais are pretty short folks compared to Westerners.

77

This may be the point that is keeping us from reaching stasis: you apparently believe that Mary’s (alleged) penis is “hurting” Bob, and I do not. If she’s being a tease then she’s no different from many natural-born woman, and a grown man like Bob should be able to handle that. If they do become intimate and he discovers that her genitals are not as expected then he is certainly in for a surprise and perhaps a serious disappointment, but again, he is an adult. Maybe he’d even learn a lesson about playing the ladies’ man.

Unfortunately, in this particular situation if Bob becomes so angry or upset that he cannot manage to behave decently, Mary will almost certainly be the one to suffer. Perhaps you think that she deserves whatever she gets, or that Hemlock owes her nothing, but I think it is reprehensible to force her into such a situation by “outing” her.

The only real harm I see Bob in danger of is being the subject of laughter and gossip, and the ones responsible for that are the people who have failed to mind their own business and keep their mouths shut. Mary is not to blame for that, and in fact Hemlock seems as guilty of it as anyone.

78

Lizard

No, I’m saying that Hemlock used a sock puppet to tell Bob about Mary, which hemlock admits he did.

It therefore logically follows that someone without a penis is not a man. So if my father had some medical condition which necessitated the amputation of his penis, would he no longer be a man? Or is there something that goes into gender beyond anatomy?

As far as I’m concerned Hemlock is not a reliable narrator, and unless he knows for a fact that Bob didn’t know before Hemlock meddled, then the point stands.

Then too bad Bob is such a weak person that he would allow the opinions of others to prevent him from enjoying the company of someone he obviously enjoys spending time with.

Bob seems rather to be enjoying Mary’s (female) gender. Learn the difference between “gender” and “sex.”

Mary’s true identity is female. She has not deceived Bob as to her identity. She may or may not have deceived Bob as to her anatomy, but that’s not the same thing.

Why should we all not have the right to expect others to casually accept us, absent our actually harming someone else?

79

My dear fellow. Could you do us all a great favor, and try to actually address the issue? And, exactly what does color blindess have to do with a drawing book? There are no color pictures in the book, and besides, color-blind artists exist. They just don’t paint or draw in color, they use B&W and limited color schemes instead.

The book discusses differences of the features of the face, and discusses the individual differences in features, as defined by race. If you are offended by Hemlock’s comment that someone is “tall for their race”, it only stands to reason that you’d be equally offended to discover that there are many books which discuss the length of noses, the slopes of foreheads, etc. of the different races. I mean, what’s the damned difference between what these books discuss, and Hemlock’s comment? It’s obviously so BIASED and RACIST to comment on such things! I mean, that’s what you thought when Hemlock did it.

Now that I’ve given you the “heads up” on the fact that actual BOOKS have been authored, discussing the same sort of RACIST comments that so offended you when Hemlock uttered them, I must only assume you will push to have such hateful and bigoted books banned. So, how about it?

Could you actually address the issue you brought up, rather than just pissing and moaning, and merely repeating what we have already said? Please specify - why was Hemlock so out of line by mentioning that Mary was “tall for her race”?

80

IMHO, this is the crux of the issue. To me, kissing someone who I believed to be a person with a penis who, in fact, possessed a vagina would be harmful. It would upset me because I do not find people with vaginas to be sexually attractive and I do not want to kiss them. From what Hemlock says, Bob would prefer not to kiss people with penises. To allow him to do so through Mary’s deceit is to allow him to be harmed by her.

From another post, it seems that kissing doesn’t “count” as sexual behavior to you, but it would to me–and from Hemlock’s account to Bob as well. And since he knows Bob better than you or I, I am inclined to trust him on this matter.