With friends like Hemlock

The BBQ Pit
101

Yosemitebabe says - The way you describe her, I think Bob is a dense boy for not figuring out Mary’s secret. Yes. As I said, Bob considers himself quite a ladykiller, and (to him) Mary is proving him right. Meanwhile, she’s flattered by the attention. Hence the mirth among the other guys in the bar.

*I think the disappointment Mary may feel (if indeed she had serious feelings for Bob) would be more upsetting if he had found out about her penis in a more intimate moment, and broke it off with her at that time. He might not be able to prepare himself, and be as gracious with her under such circumstances. This way, he can ease himself out of it (if he decides that’s what he wants to do) and it’s all relatively pain-free and not too messy. *

He’s a kind guy. He’d never break off her penis ;). And yes, this way he can devise his own exit strategy.

Jester says - *But there is room for doubt at this point in time. *

I haven’t plunged my hand into her panties. I don’t need to when I consider (a) her appearance etc plus (b) Jim’s wife’s disinterested affirmation. There would have been no email if the only info I had was either (a) or (b) alone (though I would still have been 98% sure even then). The 2 together leave me with no doubt. You’ll just have to trust me on this.

Jurhael - Haven’t seen him. I don’t expect any response - my hunch is things will just revert to the status quo ante the day Mary walked in the bar.

Nymysys - Yes, I know what you’re saying about people in denial about people they think they know well. But if Bob were into kissing guys of any variety, he would not do it in public, in that bar. With some flamboyant younger exceptions, non-heteros in Hong Kong keep things very much under wraps. Your other comments echo those of various others and have been countered repeatedly in this thread.

102

**

But how would it harm you? Upset you, sure. Surprise you, sure. Disappoint you, sure. But harm? I’d consider myself pretty damn lucky if the worst harm I ever suffered was learning that I’d kissed someone whose genitals were not what I’d assumed. I’d probably consider myself the luckiest person in the world.

**

If Mary has a penis, and Bob is attracted to Mary, then Bob is in fact attracted to at least one person with a penis whether he realizes it or not.

Actually, I apparently view kissing as much more serious sexual behavior than Bob, because there is no way in hell I would ever be swapping spit with a casual bar acquaintance. But these are my personal feelings on the matter and I realize that not everyone shares them. If Bob is happy to kiss people he barely knows then that’s fine by me, and if Hemlock’s description of the situation is accurate, then Bob would be happy to go even farther than he has with Mary despite being so poorly acquainted with her that he doesn’t even know that she is openly and obviously transgendered. Well, the price you pay for getting physical with someone you barely know is that you’ve gotten physical with someone you barely know.

103

I’m not Brynda, but heck, I’m here, I’ll ramble a bit about these issues:

So, just because someone has personally has encountered far more “harm” in their life, that means that no one should bother to lift a finger to possibly help someone avoid a lesser form of “harm”?

If you don’t think it’s a big deal, then the other person shouldn’t have anything to be upset about? (“Heck! Only his finger got cut off? Why is he complaining! I lost my whole damned leg!”) An extreme example, I know. But since when is “I’ve suffered more than that” a good reason to not want to intervene and help a friend avoid some discomfort (to say the least)?

We all are created differently. Something that will mortify me may not even phase someone else. If I see a friend potentially encountering a situation that may mortify (embarrass, whatever) them, I will try to give them a “heads up”, even if the identical situation would be of no consequence to me. That’s because it’s about him, NOT me.

And if an extremely slim woman dresses up in a “Dolly Parton” suit, including fake bum and HUGE padded boobs, and a guy is attracted to her (because he’s attracted to Dolly Parton types) then all of a sudden he’s attracted to slim women? No, he was attracted to the illusion of what he thought she was. If Bob is not attracted to people with penises, he’s not attracted to people with penises.

You make an excellent point, but the thing is:

  1. Hemlock KNOWS, and can give his friend the “heads up”. Why shouldn’t he help his friend avoid some discomfort?
  2. So, we all “get what we deserve”? Lord help me from “getting what I deserve”. We’re all doomed if we think like that. What if the lady in question had a sexually transmitted disease, and Bob didn’t know about it? As foolhardy as Bob may be, why shouldn’t someone tell him about it before things go too far? Why should he have to learn the “hard” way? Who are you to decide that “it serves him right”?

There are times when I would feel less sympathy for a person, and would be more apt to think “it serves them right”. But in this case, I think Bob may “learn his lesson” (to take more time to get acquainted with lovely ladies in bars) through the information Hemlock gave him. However, if Hemlock notices that Bob continues to be oblivious and not very cautious with this sort of thing, perhaps Hemlock will not be so quick to help out in the future. But I think Bob deserves at least one “heads up”.

104

Putting aside, for the moment, that cultural norms in China are different and applying Western sensibilities, I think y’all are dancing around the central issue here.

Suppose Mary’s grandmother were [insert favorite disfavored minority here] most folks would agree that it would be inapropriate to tell Bob, even if Bob were bigoted enough to care. Indeed, it would be inappropriate to tell Bob especially if he were were bigoted because we all agree that we shouldn’t pander to Bob’s bigotry.

I can see a difference however, in the statement “Mary’s grandmother is black!” and “Mary is a pre-operative transgendered person!.” If nothing else, Bob could certainly find the second bit of information to be of extreme practical relevance. However, the real question that everyone has been avoiding is “Is it inappropriate to tell Bob and, therefore, cater to his anti-pre-operative-transgendered person bigotry?” if, indeed, bigotry is the proper word to use in this context. I dunno.

The specific facts of this case seem to me a little different. Let’s assume, for the sake of this post that Mary is a pre-operative transgendered person and is generally open about it. In that case, it’s not about Mary’s privacy because she hasn’t kept the information private. (If Mary had made a big effort to keep the information private, I might analyze this differently.) If Mary’s being upfront about her status with everyone except Bob, then Bob has a right to know. If it doesn’t matter to him, excellent. If it does, well, that’s Bob’s choice, not Mary’s or anyone elses.

As for the anonymous e-mail thing. I think some people are being a bit hard on Hemlock. If Hemlock really were a gossip monger with evil intent, can you see him passing up the chance to watch Bob’s face when he says. “Bob, your girlfriend is a man.” I mean, really, how often do opportunities like this come along in life?

I can certainly see cultural situations, especially in Asia, where an anonymous e-mail would be the exactly correct way to drop a bomb like this. If Bob already knows and/or doesn’t care, no harm done. If, instead, Bob has an apoplectic fit, he has time to digest the possibility and consider what to do about it in private without any loss of face.

105

Those aren’t premises. Keep up with the program. The premise was “If Mary has a penis, then she is a man.” You concluded that the inverse must be true, therefore the conditional is false. Wrong.

I can decide to be Black because I want to be. I want dreadlocks and dark skin and a beautiful black nose and a lovely ass that sticks out (this is all true!), so therefore I am African-American. Bullshit. I do not know what it is like to survive in a racist society, just as a man does not know what it is like to live in a patriarchall society…

No man knows what it is to be a woman. Tell me how it felt to get your first period too early or too late. The first time about your period was late and what you thought you’d do if it turned out you were pregnant, and the next time it happened, and when you felt another life living inside of you, and when you brought this life into the world, and when you worried about what “they” would think of you for having a child, or what “they” would think of you for not having a child, or how you’ve discovered that how you look will always be relevant to what you do. These are the primary experiences that woman share. Mary will never experience any of this. I’m so sorry if this is source of mental anguish for him. There’s nothing he can do to become a woman.

106

yosesmitebabe , you may not be me, but in this case, you think a lot like me.

Hey, Lamia , what she said.

107

chula, I agree with a lot of what you say.

I think the real tragedy for transgendered people is that they’re not happy with the gender they were (externally) physically born with, and yet they’re never going to be “complete” in the other gender. There is no way they can ever really know what it is like to have gone through all these female things that we go through, or male things in the vice versa situation.

I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to be caught in this limbo land. Perhaps as difficult as it is for infertile couples (or even homosexual couples who cannot have a child of shared genetic stock) who cannot fulfil a strong biological urge they may have to reproduce.

And often it seems like some are creating an exaggerated parody of the opposite gender, which is also sad, because it’s probably the best they can do. I have seen transgendered (post-op) people that are really undetectable as transgendered people, the change has been so successful. But for all of them there are certainly awkwardly “hippy” men and deep-voiced women that must find it very hard to blend in to their new gender.

And I also think as much as people have a right to practise homosexual behaviour and not have heterosexual behaviour forced upon them, they have a right not to suffer the reverse. This Bob - as far as Hemlock believes - is heterosexual, and may even be repulsed by homosexual activity (which is his right, you can find a certain food distasteful without finding the people who eat it distasteful). Yet if this Mary person is disguising herself as the opposite gender when she is not, then this is sort of what she’s doing.

She’s taking away Bob’s choice, because she’s deliberately misinforming him.

108

No, but a potential minor degree of harm does not justify butting into the life of a sane adult, especially if that butting could cause more serious harm to a third party. If Mary were the notorious Black Widow of Hong Kong then Hemlock would be right to warn his friend away from even casual involvement with her. But the level of harm Bob stands to suffer in this situation does not justify interfering in his life, or in Mary’s.

**

Because it is none of his business. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve KNOWN that a friend was dating (and I mean seriously dating, not flirting with at a bar) someone who was a jerk and who would only hurt them, but as early as my mid-teens I learned to keep my big mouth shut.

**

He’d hardly be the first person to make that mistake. If Bob is a grown man then it is his responsibility to take steps to avoid STDs. It is not Hemlock’s place, or anyone else’s place, to go rushing into the breach with a condom if Bob chooses to behave irresponsibly.

Now, if Hemlock knew for a solid fact (not a third hand rumor) that Mary had AIDS then he would probably be right to speak to Bob about it personally (not send him an anonymous e-mail), since he knows that Bob wants to have sex with Mary and since it would be possible for Bob to have unprotected sex with her without realizing that she was sick. But this would be justified only because dying of AIDS is an extremely serious harm. Is “Oh dear, she has a penis!” anywhere near the same level of harm as, “Oh dear, she has a deadly contagious disease!”? I can scarcely imagine the sort of hatred of men one would have to feel in order to think they were comparable, or that they justified the same degree of third-party interference.

109

More serious harm to Mary, Lamia? In what way is she damaged here?

110

She’s become the subject of gossip and rumors, which is the exact same harm type of harm that Bob has suffered, but in her case the substance of the rumors is more serious (I know I would rather be thought the innocent victim of a deception than the scheming perpetrator) and they are being spread by someone who has hidden behind an anonymous e-mail account. When and if Mary finds out about this, she will have no way of confronting her accuser. Since the facts are not apparent, she may now be the victim of a lie. If the facts are as Hemlock believes, she has at the very least been deprived of her right to disclose her private information as she sees fit. Perhaps most importantly, she has had someone who by his own account hardly knows her decide to start meddling in her personal affairs.

111

Hmm, well, I suppose we continue to see this very, very differently.

112

Is that because you don’t think Hemlock has harmed Mary, or because you don’t care that he has harmed Mary?

113

** And so, would you feel it was Hemlock’s place to inform BOb that the person he was sucking face with had a boob job? Falsies? padded bra? you’d heard they had a boob job/falsies/padded bra?

IF your answer is 'no, perhaps you should re-evaluate why you feel so strongly that BOb should be told.

Thing is, people are attracted to other people. Often we can come up with a list of descriptive terms that we find attractive. And yes, on a basic level, gender is most likely to be one of the bigger/more important ones on that list. But when it boiled down to it, seemed that Bob was attracted to Mary. Even if “Mary” had started out in life to be “Gary”. Might that make a difference to Bob? Sure. Certainly tho’ it’s up to BOb to make that determination.

and, I feel strongly that anything that I feel necessary to a friend, I should say directly. If nothing at all else, Hemlock, there’s a boat load of difference between getting ‘information’ from a known and trusted source, and getting an anonymous message. If your intention was truely so altruistic, wanting to not embarass your friend etc. you owed it to him to say it to him.

Generally speaking, I’m of the opinion that until and unless requested, I stay out of it. I’ve broken that rule once in the past 10 years. A dear friend who’d been sober for some 30 years had started drinking again (her adult daughter told me). And I contacted her directly and said 'because I care, take a look at the fact that you chose to not tell me about it, probably 'cause you knew that I’d tell you it wasn’t a good idea…".

And, in that case, no one else’s privacy/feelings etc were involved, and I considered it to be a life and death matter.

I understand the position of the people who think Bob aught to know. For some people the concept of potentially being attracted to some one who wasn’t completely genetically of the opposite gender has connotations.

OTOH, I’ve known folks who were adamant about their heterosexuality in public, especially to friends but were more than a little ambivelent in private.

114

In the scenario Hemlock describes, the potential “harm” to Mary seems less than the “harm” to Bob.

Whether or not you choose to accept it, many people (and most likely Bob) would be quite embarrassed, mortified, horrified (etc etc) at being “duped” by a lovely lady who indeed possesses a penis. You don’t have to believe that Bob’s level of “harm” will be that big of a deal, but apparently Hemlock believes this. He knows Bob better than anyone else here. He is far more qualified to guage Bob’s level of “harm” in this situation.

In Mary’s case, if indeed Bob decides that he doesn’t want to date people with penises (and if he believes the email, which hey - he may not) then he will gently ease himself out of the situation, probably without Mary ever knowing the reasons why. Things will just fizzle out, like relationships sometimes do. I doubt this is the first time such a thing has happened to Mary. It certainly is a more commonplace experience than the kind of shock and surprise Bob was (proabably) going to be in for. And, after all, Mary probably didn’t expect marriage and a white house with a picket fence with Bob, did she? This certainly didn’t seem like it was part of Bob’s plans anyway.

While of course none of us knows Mary, and perhaps it could be said that Mary would be mortified and devastated when Bob “eases” himself gently out of the flirtation, I personally find it highly doubtful. If Bob is gentlemanly, genteel, and gracious, she will never even know she was outed. The lovely flirtation with Bob ends gracefully. Mary will go on to enchant someone else, most likely a guy who is a little less oblivious than Bob.

And, I think TruthSeeker brings up some very good points. It seems unlikely that Mary has kept her status a deep secret from most people. Just Bob. And now that Bob knows, who is he going to tell? NO ONE. I see a status-quo here, except that Bob (finally) knows something he should have known in the first place.

Who is talking about “outing” a woman with a boob job? The comment made by Lamia was that because Bob is attracted to Mary, he is indeed attracted to at least one person with a penis. In my response, I said that this made no more sense than saying that a man who was attracted to a slim woman wearing a Dolly Parton suit (meaning, padding, not surgery) was now automatically attracted to slim women. The answer is NO, he is not automatically attracted to slim women. He’s not SEEING a slim woman, he’s seeing a woman who is wearing a Dolly Parton suit. And that is what he is attracted to. He very well may not be as attracted by her if she were not wearing the “suit” of padding. He’s attracted to the illusion of what he thinks she is, but underneath the clothing, there’s a secret. Not unlike Mary’s secret.

And if that’s so in Bob’s case, he’ll continue to see Mary. I can’t see Hemlock doing anything more about the situation. All he wanted to do was make sure Bob knew. He did this with with the email, and now, whatever Bob wants to do after that is totally his choice.

115

I don’t feel that she was really all that harmed, no. And certainly not harmed at all by Hemlock. How this plays out might leave Mary harmed, yes, and this is unfortunate. In fact, I think Bob will be pretty embarassed, at the least, so both parties are going to have their own little damages.

None of these damages were caused by Hemlock. If anything, Hemlock’s quicker action lessed Bob’s pain at a slight expense to Mary’s, which, yes, is fine by me as it plays out. If she ends up being hurt by it at all.

If as many people were making fun of Bob behind his back as Hemlock says, then it is certain that Bob would find out Mary’s true status regardless of Mary’s wishes, and in possibly (likely) less friendly ways than an anonymous email. Women are expected to not have penises. This is unfortunate for transgenders, but what can I say. While it doesn’t bother me, if **Hemlock[/]b feels it would bother Bob then Hemlock has done what any decent, upstanding friend would do: clear up a misconception.

When one person’s privacy overstep’s anothers state of being, the right to privacy of whatever would cause distress is lost IMO. I don’t have a right to know exactly what the head of Enron’s accounting department was doing until (and unless) his actions were causing harm or were in a state such that harm would come. Then those people have a right to know what they are missing. But the key thing here is that since the damaging information is initially private, no one knows to ask in the first place. A good samaritin must step forward to break the privacy and stop the situation.

What you can’t see can hurt you, and no claim to privacy will change that. Mary is no victim, and neither is Bob, but clearly the situation is centered around a huge misunderstanding. Why the hell wouldn’t anyone want to clear that up? Bob is looking for women with vaginas. Mary is catering to the woman part, but is being misleading on the vagina part.

116

But he can’t make that determination until he’s told, and remember, per the original scenario, Mary is out to hurt Bob for fun (‘enjoys leading straight guys on’ or words to that effect).

I think the only moral thing to do is to tell both of them about the ugly rumors (and describe it as a rumor) going around.

And you do have a duty to make them aware of the rumors. Even if it spoils the fun of the assholes who’ve “been enjoying watching Bob make a fool of himself”.

Once they’ve BOTH been informed (at the same time), butt the hell out, unless asked.

Fenris

117

** but that was Hemlock’s assumption, based seemingly on what they thought ‘such people like to do’, but partcularly about things this person had done. The actions described were simply making out at the bar, and there was no indication that there was further contact between them or potential for same.

ah, but of course Hemlock only told the one person, and then anonymously. feh. I have no problem spoiling the fun of the assholes, might be able to get behind the ‘hey you two, there’s some ugly rumors going on around about you’ (possibly, I’ll have to think about that)>

yosemite - in your analogy, tho’ you’re indicating that the person **would indeed ** be attracted to a physical type and that ‘fakin that type’ would be a sort of lie. I think it’s entirely appropriate for me to ask when/where you’d draw the line between which physical attributes one finds attractive should others disclose what they know.

Which ones would you feel obligated to let him know about:

Bob likes women w/o penises (so says Hemlock) and you know Mary has one

Bob likes women w/o pensises (etc) and you heard that Mary has one

Bob likes women w/big tits - and you know that Mary wore falsies, a padded bra, had a boob job.

Bob likes women w/ big tits and you heard that Mary wore falsies, a padded bra and/or had a boob job.

Bob likes women w/all her own teeth and you saw Mary pop hers out.

Bob likes women w/all their own teeth and you saw Mary walk out of a 24 hour denture place.

Bob likes blonde women, and you heard Mary dyes hers/ saw her buy some hair dye, helped her dye her hair.

You apparently are saying that ‘penis thing’ is the deciding factor, I’m suggesting that you may not have sufficient info on that. Even if he’d been attracted only to women w/o penises before (as far as **Hemlock ** knew), doesn’t mean that is the current status quo, since he apparently felt an attraction to Mary.

Certainly he may still feel that’s a deal breaker as it were.

But, frankly to me, the deal breaker in this situation was the method that Hemlock chose. If he **really really ** felt that way and so strongly, there is no fuckin reason in the world for him not to do it openly. Like I said, I treat info from an anonymous source in quite a different way than info from a trusted source.

So, let’s think about it, Bob gets the anonymous email and blows it off as sour grapes from some one too cowardly to say anything to his face.

time passes and he discovers it on his own. Do you really believe that 'hemlock has passed the ‘true friend’ test 'cause he sent an anonymous message? balderdash. If he didn’t believe it sufficiently to tell them openly, he should have kept his mouth shut.

118

wring:

We could start a whole new thread, deciding what the “cut off point” would be for deciding what physical “secret” about a woman (or man) is important enough to divilge to a romantic interest.

However, if you really think that the majority of heterosexual men would find the reality that their “girlfriend” had a penis equivalent to the reality that their “girlfriend” had falsies, fake teeth, or colored hair, you are indeed in the minority. I guess we could do a poll in IMHO to see what particular physical “secret” most heterosexual men would MOST want to know about, or would find to be most “troubling” (if that’s the right word). I doubt many would find the presence of a penis on a woman to be no different to a dye job, or a boob job.

I don’t disagree with you (and posted a statement saying so, lo so many posts ago) that perhaps a face-to-face discussion about Mary would be more appropriate. But Hemlock explained his reasons for not doing so.

119

It’s not harmful to have lies spread about you behind your back? If Hemlock’s claims about Mary are in any way incorrect, then he has (perhaps unwittingly) spread a lie about her. Even if Hemlock is right about Mary’s physical condition he may be very wrong about her intent. He’s been happy to paint her as the scheming yellow devil who is toying with Bob for her own amusement, but according to his own account he barely knows her. He seems to have based his belief about her motivations solely upon his preconceptions about how “ladyboys” customarily behave.

Perhaps Mary didn’t think Bob needed to know about her since she isn’t planning to sleep with him. Perhaps she thought that the fact that she was not born a woman was common knowledge and didn’t need spelling out. If Hemlock had had the decency to approach Mary instead of writing to Bob anonymously, Mary may well have agreed to speak to Bob and clear the whole thing up herself. She may have been planning to do so anyway. I think we can both agree that it would be best for everyone involved if Mary were the one to come clean with Bob, but she’ll never have that chance now.

If he were so decent and upstanding, he wouldn’t have to hide behind an anonymous e-mail. While he can’t take back the e-mail it’s not too late for Hemlock to tell Bob that he was the author and explain the reasons for his suspicions about Mary, but he apparently does not plan to do this. Noble behavior does not require one to be sneaky. Shameful behavior does.

You don’t know that. I don’t know that. Hemlock doesn’t know that, although he thinks he does. Frankly, there are a lot of things about Hemlock’s story that don’t add up, and I’m disinclined to take what he says as a given. Even if Bob thinks that Mary has a vagina and would want to be informed if she did not, it is possible that Mary is either a natural-born woman or a post-op transsexual with the best damn vagina medical science could give her. The only misunderstanding may be Hemlock’s belief that there is a misunderstanding. He could have questioned Mary about his suspicions, but he didn’t. He could have had an honest talk with Bob about his suspicions, but he didn’t. Instead he presented those suspicions as a fact in an anonymous e-mail. That’s despicable.

120

you may be correct yosemite about how ‘most heterosexual guys’ would feel about their girlfriends and penises. Of course, all we have is Hemlock’s assertion the guy is exclusively heterosexual and will always be Neither is a ‘given’ to me.

From Hemlock’s reaction here, it seems clear to me that if Bob did indeed have some attractions elsewhere, he’d certainly not share them w/ Hemlock

And, for that matter, while most might feel that the penis thing is definately different, (and I’m not disagreeing), from the boob, dyed hair etc, the position that Seemed to be argued was ‘Mary is lying about something essential, we, dutiful friends we are, owe it to our friend to disclose something we heard about Mary to BOb’. And I think I’m correct in asking the question , ok, so what would constitute ‘essential’ to y’all? And where would you say ‘no, that’s Mary’s personal business, and we shouldn’t interfere’. An illness? herpes? genital warts? AIDS? Cancer? Hemmeroids?

A child that’s been put up for adoption? A criminal Record? a prior abortion? (That’s a good one - suppose Bob is an avid RTL-er, and you’d heard that Mary’d had an abortion several years ago) And you know that BOb would never, ever willingly be w/a woman who’d had an abortion. What then?

If the issue truely is “I KNOW this person and this is one thing I know they wouldn’t stand for if they knew” (and that stance has been repeated here - suggesting that the penis gig is ‘the’ issue), there’s lots of things that people ‘wouldn’t stand for’. And where do you draw the line?

Yes, we could do a new thread, but the reality seems to be that some folks are just adamant that ‘it’s not my place to disclose some one else’s secrets, especially since it’s only a rumor’, and others seem to be arguing ‘but in this case, it’s significant’. So, to me, I’m waiting for those in that camp to explain where that line is.

guess I’m not explaining it that well. yes, I know a penis is different than a boob. (insert joke here). and yes, persons caring strongly about the availability of a penis probably are in the majority.

BUt - what you’re really saying is that ‘this is something that person cares really strongly about, is a deal breaker, so I’m justified in disclosing some one else’s secret’.

And I"m saying there’s other folks out there to whom race, prior abortion, prior homosexual conduct, yes, even boob size would also be deal breakers. What do you propose to do then?

If you’d not disclose, then why? It certainly **only **isn’t because of your avowed stance of "this is something that the person cares really strongly about, is a deal breaker ’ etc. because in these other cases, it may be as well.

Perhaps, then it’s because for you personally that issue would be significant enough to be a deal breaker, and so therefore, you empathize with that person’s position, and that those other issues are ones you personally feel are less intrinsict to the personhood of the individual.

and if that’s the case, then your principal really is “this is something that the person cares really strongly about, is a deal breaker and is for me, too”