urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
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User ID: 226
This kind of man exists in very high numbers, they just aren’t open about it. Go on Grindr and you’ll find that there’s no shortage of “discrete” tops who love twinks and femboys, and not enough supply to meet the demand.
The general complaint among the, uh, supply is that the demand is high, but extremely low-quality, even by gay hookup culture standards of quality, precisely because the demand is from people who are principally heterosexual, and probably have deep roots in heterosexual culture -- including, possibly, a wife. Therefore they're exceptionally flaky/indifferent/uncertain, leading to the kind of debasement I discussed in my other reply to you as a desperate attempt to lock-down any reasonably qualified leads. So I'm not sure this is a lopsided market in the way you're suggesting; it's more of a matching market where neither side seems to be happy. Cf all other dating environments.
However, by far the most common kind of pairing you find for this type of person is actually femme-to-femme, both because the masculine options are so low-quality, and because some meaningful fraction of this group is bisexual or AGP. In our earlier discussion on this topic, I was talking about this sub-population; when you assumed I was talking about transmasc-transfemme pairings, I was actually confused! When you said that transitioning "is weirdly common among men willing to openly date trans women," well, that wasn't surprising or confusing at all to me, and it was interesting to see that it was confusing to you.
IMO, trans women who try to date men are, for obvious reasons, often pulling from the pool Blanchard described as "gynandromorphophiles", which are often also AGP. Gender transitioning, for this pool of individuals, is often both appealing in the AGP sense, and appealing in the sense that it gives them "skin in the game" that establishes cred among bisexual trans women who treat cis men with suspicion.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
21d ago
Blanchard’s theory is true in the sense that AGP and HSTS populations exist, but it’s overly reductive in the sense that they’re not the only categories of trans people out there. Of course, it was more accurate than the previous view at the time which would lump them all together in a single one.
I'm curious, what would your typologies of trans people look like, if you were to describe the different categories you've seen?
Men who are sexually into wearing female clothing and find the idea of being a woman erotic have probably been around since the earliest proto civilisations (see François-Timoléon de Choisy, who probably lied about seeing the royal family dressed as a woman, but not about being aroused by wearing a corset).
One thing that I often like to note is that the Blanchard typology misses an important detail, which is that "men who find the idea of being a woman erotic" isn't exclusively a thing for men attracted to women; it's in fact extremely common among men attracted to men. So the idea of lust for women being misdirected into self-lust for the state of being a woman has never struck me as an exhaustive explanation for the crossdresser-to-trans pipeline, or even the primary one.
I think there's a mode that's almost something akin to vagina-envy, where the default attraction for most men is to women, and therefore attaining womanhood is a means of becoming the archetypal appeal to the male gaze. I've certainly known people who've seemed to fit that bill.
That said, I don't know that the general public would find this cluster more sympathetic than the AGPs -- there are often a lot of immensely sexist assumptions baked into their idea of what attaining womanhood to appeal to the male gaze would look like. You know, "I exist to serve men, my body is a means of satisfaction for men," often combined with an intense desire to appeal to bisexual or bicurious men by insisting on their willingness to debase themselves for men in ways cis women will not. What exactly that debasement might entail is left as an exercise for the reader.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
23d ago
others had always been nerds (e.g. one had also been a NASA mission control specialist)
Man, the word "control" there really changes the significance of this sentence.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
23d ago
Most girls besides online too much feminists want some male glaze.
Hm. Intentional or typo?
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
25d ago
Yeah, in the US with the presidential system the main election people care about is the presidential electors; legislative elections take a back-seat and typically win by riding coattails in straight-party voting. In parliamentary systems I presume “which party did you vote for?” would be the more significant question. Something like “how do you feel about gay marriage?” feels less intrusive to me, I could see that coming up in a reasonable conversation. The entire point of the voting question is specifically to interrogate polling booth behavior, not political values (which is why I find it so offensive — I’ve voted for Andy Griffith, my mother, Walter White, and Rishi Sunak for various local elections, my political values don’t fit into a party).
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
26d ago
Unfortunately lots of people are convinced that the country is falling actively into dictatorship and the question is roughly like asking if you’re a collaborator in occupied France. That’s where people’s heads are at.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
26d ago
I will often go on record defending the good name of men from criticism, but I think men are generally more commitment-phobic than women. That is all it takes to convince women that men are commitment-phobic, because they’re comparing them to themselves and not to a hypothetical ideal.
For market reasons, a lot of men become attached to women they consider less than their ideal, and likewise for market reasons said women try to lock down the higher-than-expected man who’s Just Not That Into Her. Men also have a hard time with a commitment to monogamy, because they see it as a lot to promise (and a lot to expect from) one lady in particular.
It’s relatively common for women to end up in long term relationships with guys they’d wish would move more quickly. Actually if your partner never wishes to move more quickly than you as a man, that’s a red flag that She’s Not That Into You.
It’s just a pretty clear fact to me that, as a population, women move more clearly towards commitment and men just don’t, setting aside if he’s madly in love with her, then all bets are off.
That said, I also am often disappointed that the perspective I bring about what it’s like to be a man is often unacknowledged by women in internet discussions, but that just is what it is. Women in my personal life are occasionally able to have a real discussion about gender roles and experiences, and I learn more from that anyway.
How a woman regards your perspective on gender roles as a man is highly dependent upon how she perceives you, and men who comment critically on them on the internet start with a negative perception score which takes a lot to undo, because it’s perceived as being essentially sour grapes. “If he were actually a decent man,” they imagine, “he wouldn’t have so much to complain about.” To be fair, a ton of men complaining about dating on the internet is sour grapes and turns nasty pretty quickly.
But it’s still disappointing when I try hard to understand the perspective of women and state my concerns in a way that concedes ground and establishes good will, and then receive negativity or nothing in return. I think a positive way forward has to begin with mutual understanding and patience, but it’s often my impression that women aren’t willing to understand or have patience for men they consider low-status — and, after all, high-status men don’t need mutual understanding and patience, they already have status.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
26d ago
I’ve also had a similar experience. I believe the “who did you vote for?” question is the updated progressive’s version of trying to intelligently discover your values; they believe it’s the question that you can’t dodge without revealing you’re a Trump supporter. They earnestly believe “I did not vote” is code for “I voted for Trump and I’m trying to hide it,” which explains the nasty reaction, particularly with how you tried to explain it.
That said, I’ve often wondered what would happen if you said something like “I don’t vote because there is no ethical political participation under capitalism, I work in my community to create change using syndicalist methods, and I reject the fascist-capitalist method of false representative democracy,” and whether said progressive girl would give a similar kind of disgust face, or look on you with awe. I wouldn’t lie to someone to sleep with them, but the temptation to lie to troll someone is real.
Ultimately, when someone asks this question, you’ve already lost. I think if someone is that neurotic about political persuasion, it’s unlikely they’d be a stable person to befriend anyway. There’s a long tradition of progressive women going, “I’ve been seeing this guy for months and he’s so nice and we have fun together, but I found out yesterday he voted for Trump, should I murder him or just break up with him?” They consider it tantamount to an undisclosed felony conviction, and acknowledge no legitimate or strategic reasons why someone might have voted for him. They believe voting for him is an endorsement of his personal behavior and misconduct, like anyone who voted for Trump is liable to start grabbing random women by the pussy at any moment. To them, it’s better to reject anyone who doesn’t clearly endorse the Democratic Party, because they believe Republican men are out to assault them. TDS is strong.
Someone who thinks like that seems like an awful friend and a worse partner. So I’d say she did you a favor.
I don’t really understand your point, or what you’re trying to say. I care about and love the women in my life a great deal. I empathize seriously with the experiences of victims of sexual abuse, and in fact I find their stories hard to encounter because I feel such anger and outrage at the loss of self-possession and immense sense of shame and guilt that survivors struggle to overcome. It’s evil, plain and simple.
The reason it’s not a subject of debate is just what you said last: there’s no toxoplasmosa. It was a horrible crime and the guilty were sentenced.
You seem, at least to me, to be trying to argue from this case that heterosexual love is impossible, or that heterosexuality is inherently corrupting. Well, actually, you said “male sexuality.” That’s interesting.
Your profile hasn’t seen any posts in two years, and in one of the final posts before this valentine’s post you wrote this:
I bring these examples up not to harangue men but to explicitly set aside the discourse about romantic relationships, in which most men and women seem happy to accept a certain asymmetry. A male friend recently gave me the dating advice that what's important in a partner is that they are "naturally happy", which struck me as a hilariously insufficient and condescending criterion, better suited to choosing a puppy. As a spergy gay man, I don't have a dog in this fight, if it is a fight, but I do find explicit commentary on the expectations of gendered social interaction helpful (and entertaining).
Do you believe that love between gay men is possible? Is lesbian love possible?
Both, as I’m sure you know, have cultures of asymmetry and opposites, of masc tops and femme bottoms and dalliances with much older, wealthier men and daddy kinks, of butch lesbians and lipstick lesbians. Is gay love fairer than straight love to you?
Asymmetry coexists with mutual desire all the time, and with every orientation. And so, of course, does abuse and sexual assault. Love exists in spite of the evil of this world, and indeed sexual tenderness exists in concert with the impulses of male sexuality.
Most men are driven by a desire not only to please themselves through sex but to please their partners as well. I don’t doubt that, as a gay man, you are highly familiar with gay men who would rather give head than receive it; you should understand that the desire to please your sex partner exists among straight men as well. Most men highly enjoy sex noises and dirty talk from their partners, as a sign of that dirty phrase, “enthusiastic consent”, and of mutual pleasure. There could be no jokes about women faking orgasms if men did not find the idea of women faking orgasms to be Ego-destroying. Men overwhelmingly find the idea of sex with an unconscious person unarousing, in addition to morally unconscionable.
I guess I wonder what drives you to believe that male sexuality is inherently corrupting, instead of merely a force that can be used for good as well as bad — obviously, in this case, for bad. Have you ever fallen in love with someone, and wanted more than anything their happiness? Have you ever desired sex with someone out of a desire for unity with them, to make them feel good, to be as close with them as physically and emotionally possible? These are all compatible with the intensity of raw, undifferentiated male desire, and if you might allow me to say, far more erotic than mere lust.
My understanding is that this comes under fire by the GC people Edit: I meant strict self-ID people because it means that passing is actually highly relevant to how you're treated, and a combination of late transition/no money for treatments/lack of self confidence/depression makes that seem like an oppressive obstacle. I get their point but I guess it's always been obvious to me that in the real world passing is eminently important, and the reality is that everyone's identity (on every axis) is a negotiation between them and society. My attitude's always been: I'm fine using your preferred pronouns if that makes you feel better, but can you please make an attempt to help me out?
The technical term for this cluster is “sissy.” Don’t look this up unless you’re looking for NSFW content.
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