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songs about buildings and fooddiscussion of trans matters, this time courtesy of Freddie deBoer. First of, let me say I appreciate Freddie's writing. I think he often has sensible things to say, particularly in his own field of education, and offers necessary criticism as a leftist who is on the left.That being said, he is just as prone to the shibboleths of his side as we on the right are to the shibboleths of our side. Having seen how the progressive agenda around education is a steaming pile of what makes the roses grow, because he's been there and he's seen how the theory does not correspond with reality, I don't understand how he then falls into line with the rest of the progressive activism around other matters. But then, we all have our blind spots.
He wants to compare transgenderism with transracialism, and how one is real and valid and the other is a fake, but then he comes out with lines like this:
Well then eff me, Freddie, if it's not genetics and it's not physiology and biology not real, what is gender identity tied to?
Maybe... feelings? I feel like a woman?
Then why isn't it possible to feel like a black woman? To have that same yearning about identity and conviction that what you are "assigned at birth" is not the truth of what you really are?
He does not seem to have seen the arguments in some quarters that the term "trans woman" should not be used, that it should simply be "woman". After all, trans women are women. Maybe he hasn't encountered the nuttier fringes of the "trans movement" as yet.
Yeah, I absolutely don't disagree there. He sings along to the chorus like a good right-thinking person on the right side of history. But maybe those who don't hold the conventional progressive position aren't all dishonest or activated by unthinking bigotry and prejudice? Something to think about.
Anyway, this is mostly to present a reasonable leftist and what they think the trans movement is all about, and how their experience may or may not line up with what other people have experienced. In the middle of the screeching harpies, it's hard to remember that on both sides of this question are people who are genuinely trying to do their best.
Care to explain the reference? Is the album name a spoof on buildings and food being a common topic in the 70s musical zeitgeist?
It's not clear to me how the conservative agenda (at least in America) is much better, but we can let that potshot slide for the moment.
To perhaps offer a steelman, there are certain cultural practices and norms tied to gender that are essentially arbitrary in the modern environment. There's no inherent reason that women should be forced to shave their legs/armpits to be considered attractive, for instance, or that men shouldn't do the same. There's no biological imperative that men shouldn't be allowed to wear dresses, or makeup, or be considered submissive or cute. Ditto for being the majority caregivers after your child is more than a few years old, and earlier if you aren't breastfeeding. We long ago left the Hobbesian jungle of burly men hunting megafauna with stone tools, and physical strength is largely irrelevant in a world of Zoom meetings, work-from-home and knowledge economies. I'd argue that many of these gender norms have fluctuated throughout history. So what if someone identifies with a set of traits or characteristics that our society would typically associate with the opposite gender, regardless of whether this is caused by genetics/early childhood experiences or environmental exposures/'feelings' (themselves a product of all of the above, even if you try to use vocabulary suggesting that they are transient or unimportant)?
This in and of itself causes problems for people arguing that we should eradicate the gender binary entirely, and I haven't seen anyone square that circle convincingly. I'm personally more particular to those worldviews where most gender norms should be abolished and trans identity is more of a kludge in response to society enforcing a binary, but I'm not representative of everyone on the left.
Frequent rebuttals to this argument are often rooted in evolutionary psychology or Chestertonian fences. Or, as you frequently argue in other posts, it's 'just a fetish' and/or sexual predators trying to sneak under the radar to rape people, none of which I find particularly convincing. You can point to trans rapists; but then again, so can I for most of your favored groups, and these niche cases don't invalidate the cause as a whole.
It does seem that society is undergoing some kind of upheaval in response to generations of Women's lib, and where the new equilibrium will fall, I can't say. Perhaps the optimum would be one where everyone could freely choose for themselves, and while most people would naturally occupy the gender roles the correspond to their birth, there wouldn't be any stigma or disgust associated with people who (for whatever reason) do not. But...that just sounds a lot to me like trans acceptance, no? There used to be a futurist transhumanism strain here that was more optimistic and trans-positive that has either been driven off or converted to conservative trad thinking, which is a shame.
It's not a bad question. My personal response would be that black women are typically viewed as less attractive, as loud, stupid, etc. externally by society, regardless of whether they personally identify with any of those traits as well as a shared cultural history/tradition that is frequently tightly intertwined with the history of racism, segregation, slavery, etc. in the west. Thus the many examples highlighted here like Rachel Dolezal and the fake native American women which are most often rooted in self-advancement or Munchhausen-like addiction to sympathy, no? A white man who likes basketball and rap is viewed by society as...just a normal man as opposed to transracial, whereas a black man doing the same is viewed significantly differently. Meanwhile, a white man who likes wearing dresses and makeup is certainly not viewed by society as just a normal man, thus the 'trans' identity and pushback against social norms.
There's also the everpresent (although perhaps less frequently explicitly expressed of late) undercurrent of a post-racial/gender GLSC future. Such a world could still have 'trans' people who are born one sex and express traits that current times would code as of the opposite sex, whereas black women would just be women with more or less pigment. Assuming we reached some kind of equality without racialized underclasses, and maintained it for at least several generations.
But I can recognize that the logic isn't perfectly airtight.
This reads like 'mainstream view bad!' boo-outgroup. Ironically (considering the second half of your statement), you act as if the only way one could hold mainstream views on LGBTQ issues is to be a self-righteous, intellectually dishonest NPC. Just as I don't believe that you are dishonest or bigoted, maybe consider that Freddie and I actually do spend some time thinking about issues and arrive at our own conclusions.
Are you sure about that ? You think sexuality is entirely environmental, there are is no genetic component to it ?
That's bullshit.
The fundamental asymmetry between male and female genetic interests has been there essentially forever. Submissive men do exist, but they're more rare than the other way around.
And as to cute... ditto. Men aren't cute. You can try to 'consider' them cute, but that's the same level of as talking about feminine penises.
With all due respect ma'am/sir, misstating my argument and then rebutting it with nothing more than 'that's bullshit' is remarkably poor form. But anyways:
Sexuality typically refers to sexual attraction/orientation, which I only tangentially mention.
I don't assert that it is entirely environmental.
I'm not sure about anything. It's a worldview, and I'm open to changing my mind. You'll have to try a bit harder though.
I do believe that many of the things we're discussing happen to be largely environmental, though. Male preference for pants versus 'dresses' varies wildly across cultures; from kilts, thawbs, thongs worn by many tribal peoples, togas and roman tunics, whatever. So no, I don't believe men have a genetic imperative against wearing dresses, nor do I believe that women have a genetic imperative to find men in dresses unattractive. There are centuries of wildly different fashions and norms, even amongst Europeans who (presumably) share your genetic background.
Even if you just want to consider sexuality, I do believe that there is significant plasticity and environmental influence on what and who people find attractive. We oscillate between finding short hair on women attractive, to unattractive, to attractive ad nauseum. Repeat for most traits.
Speak for yourself, I find plenty of men cute. I suspect if you ask some of the women in your life they'll have plenty of examples of men they would describe as cute.
People constantly conflate gender/sex preferences that are culturally/socially contingent and those that are universal (and thus almost certainly biological in nature).
Some actors obviously do this in bad faith. Like the typical feminist/queer theorist who says 'pink used to to be for boys, blue for girls, now it's the opposite, thus proving all gender preferences are arbitrary and that the idea that women prefer people and men prefer things is also arbitrary and socially contingent!' Gotta love those huge non-sequiturs.
Really, you can seperate gender preferences (including sexual preferences) into three rough catagories - (1) things that are universally/biological, (2) things that are socially determined but are influenced and constrained by biology to some degree and thus are not completely arbitrary, and (3) things that are socially determined and are completely arbitrary.
Men liking things and women liking people is an example of number 1. It is universal and biological, and reflects the biological division of labour.
Most (historically) gendered clothing fits into number 2. Clothing still has to reflect the practical needs of each sex, which is in turn derived from the gender role (which in turn is derived from the biological division of labour). But there is obviously a significant degree of wiggleroom which is culturally contingent. An obvious example is the fact that women wear bras and men don't. This obviously isn't an arbitrary completely socially determined choice. Though the specific designs or styles of bras might be.
Colour preference for genders is an example for number 3. There is generally no compelling reason why certain colours should be assigned to either men and women. This is culturally socially determined (though I suppose someone could try to make an attenuated evo psych argument about how red is biologically masculine cause blood or some shit).
All this basically applies to sexual preferences too.
Sexual attraction to well defined, feminine hips might be an example of number 1.
Sexual attraction certain kinds of modes of behavior (e.g. stoic, dominant nature in men) might be an example of 2.
Certain kinds of decoration, such as tattoos might be an example of 3.
I'm not going to deny that there are certain behaviors or traits that are dominated by genetic influences (if we dropped a pair of children off on a deserted island and they made it to adulthood, I'm sure they could figure out how to propagate the species), and I do agree with what you say generally, however I do believe that even in your post you overstate your case.
What do you think the world would look like if from birth all the media men were exposed to showcased men as caregivers while women were out earning a living? Where their male role models were all stay-at-home dads taking care of the domestic duties and their female role models were breadwinners? To the extent that we're all exposed to this pervasive monoculture(ish) it seems to me that it's impossible to say just how far we could move the needle on what you're describing with (benign) environmental changes alone.
From my other reply:
I would say that would be pretty dysfunctional society that wouldn't be able to operate effectively, most people would be miserable, if it didn't just completely collapse on itself. Men and women would immediately (unconsciously) attempt to reverse that situtation if it weren't held together by powerful social engineering/political force.
If you don't like the hips example (you can socially engineer people to deny their most basic biological instincts), another example is youthfullness being sexually attractive.
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Men would watch less TV? For that matter, so would women probably.
Or if it's actually done well, they'd happily identify with the female characters, and not think about it twice, like they do with Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor?
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But waist and hips and well shaped ass is immutable.
You sure about that? I'm obviously not in a position to offer anything more than hearsay or anecdote, but there are plenty (possibly a majority) of modern models with tiny waists rather than child-bearing hips. Ditto with variation in preference for ass size.
The waist to hip ratio is usually the same on both types of models.
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Not sure how you'll take this but I've enjoyed this autistic rant that explains «models» by preferences of predominantly gay modeliers rather than median men or organic looks hierarchy of women.
Edit: I may be biased here. One of the most miserable women I know is a short, voluptuous and fairly inept girl who very reasonably guessed she could make an easy living with her looks (a few mutual friends have rated her 10/10, I'd say 9 is about right), but tried to achieve this through traditional modeling – which completely destroyed her self-esteem through comparisons with lanky scarecrows sporting chiseled cheekbones. Honestly, everyone likes to hate on onlyfans, but in her case it would have been better.
Wasn't this JuliusBranson's shtick? I've read it before and seem to remember him writing a long post about how ancient Babylonian porn proves evo psych arguments that liberals are ugly or something. May have been someone else. Funny either way.
That said, you don't need gay designers to convince normie men that the majority of the women on this list are attractive. A huge fraction of eastern European and Asian sex symbols buck your sex doll trend. Bill Gates and Papas Elon and Bezos who are all richer than G*d could easily have maximized for breast size and didn't.
The flip side of the 'sex doll' argument is that most modern men actively wouldn't marry a stacked girl with >double Ds and a huge ass given the choice because they aren't viewed as respectable. I believe our wiser forebears called this the 'madonna-whore complex.' Meanwhile, whispers from the lost generations living before the Great-Depression (or East Asian countries a generation ago) counsel us to marry someone with 'meat on their bones' and to eat heartily or nobody will find us attractive. All of which suggest that life is more complicated than a genetic drive for bigger ass and tits.
We could make up any number of bullshit evo psych arguments to fit the data. Or talk about barber poles and elites, changing material conditions and environment, the emerging matriarchy, Freudian impulses and Jungian shadow selves and so on and so forth. But my head would hurt and it would still be made up.
I don't think the majority of women on that list are very attractive. Like, at all. The only ones who stand out as notably attractive are Kate Upton and "Angelababy". Besides that, I can easily think of many women I've known in real life who I would rather sleep with before the women on this list.
I know that my own preferences aren't exactly the norm, but, generally women overrate how attractive models/celebrities are to men. There's clearly a specific type that's been selected for by the people who run this stuff, and that type is not to everyone's taste.
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While arguably not a normie, I am a man and I posit they're not exceptionally attractive. They have sometimes amazing faces and are all around okay, but this is despite them lacking feminine waist and hips (I don't mean Beyonce, Megan Fox and other celebrities who got on that list because of being actual sex symbols). I think we can learn more about male preference from actual, organically emerging markets. How prominent are women of this type among [some high percentile] Onlyfans? Among strip club dancers? Are these bodies present in escort girl catalogues? Do women photoshop themselves into that shape? Do they seek out clothes exaggerating those traits?
And how much effect does a typical male's preference have on who gets to the runway?
Seeing Japanese lingerie models, I very much doubt it. Asians may have less interest in bottom-heavy physiques, of course.
There's the notable "billionaire wife" meme, I think they didn't prioritize looks in any case.
I am not sure about that, and the idea that rail-thin (as opposed to just tall) women are inherently more attractive to the higher-status men is on par with the most hare-brained evo psych stories. A fit, non-sagging woman with bigger tits and ass wins, although of course there are trade-offs.
Sure, but I think we don't have to, because the data in all conditions where large numbers of representative men actively express their preference and are in a position to demand the subjectively best possible pick is overwhelmingly in favor of the blogpost's hypothesis, which you are unjustifiably dismissive of.
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Women are nowhere near as competitive as men, which means they get underpaid in the workplace.
Women are worse at cooperating than men, because friendships between women are harder and they are more prone to seeing each other as competition.
They're far more prone to use socially approved form of aggression (gossip, exclusion, etc), which doesn't help organisations either.
Furthermore, childcare is low status in society now, hence a man who is willing to forgo a career to take care of children will be seen as less attractive.
If you think you can just snap your fingers and fix this, no, it doesn't work like that.
So, women are less suited for workplaces, will make less money
There simply isn't. Male preferences through history are largely unchanging. Judging by pornography, not fashion which is subject to fads.
You find them attractive. You don't find them cute in the sense of you find kitten or babies cute. It's a problem of vocabulary.
Those are fads, not genuine preferences.
Apart from a very small amount of men with a fetish for short hair, or baldness in women, no one else thinks it's attractive.
Long hair are a good signal of health, same as firm breasts, same as shapely figure.
But is pornography not also subject to trends? I recall an article from years ago bemoaning that all big mainstream porn was trending towards "big dicks fucking big tits." And you'll also notice that moden porn has signifcantly less pubic hair in it than compared to the 70's. Culture is weird like that.
Can't comment on penis size, but this guy did a deep dive into the Internet Adult Film Database and found that, contrary to the widespread impression that most porn stars are buxom blondes, the "average" porn star is a brunette 34B. Granted that the study is from 10 years ago.
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Frankly those are irrelevant. Look at the woman's asses - there was never a popular pornstar with flat ass.
Looking at the most popular pornstars on this list, I can see plenty (https://fameregistry.com/).
Tori Black, Elsa Jean, Sasha Grey, Sunny Leone, Emily Willis, Riley Reid, Mini Stallion, Lulu Chu, Clara Trinity.
All of those first 5 had perfectly shaped assed.
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