Enthusiastic Consent - I am .. confused.

[loopyapp]

So .. AIBU that the once previously highly held gold standard for consent between partners had to be enthusiastic and complete. Any hesitant or unsure thoughts = a grey area in which the other party should NOT ever step into??

I ask because (I am very new to all this so please be gentle if I've got this wrong) this sudden uprise in trans activists insisting that predominantly gay women (though men too apparently) should willingly sleep with transwomen and transmen regardless of what genitalia they have or where they are in their transition is confusing.

Are trans people really insisting that people have sex with them despite their lack of enthusiastic consent because its their right??

I must have this wrong.. surely.. we were banging the #metoo campaign drum not that long ago .. all up in arms about how both parties need to be fully able and willing to consent to engage in anything that could be considered sexual contact.. its how I've been raising my 4 boys .. its what I completely believe in .. that absolutely everyone is allowed to turn sex down at any point, even during, simply because they wish to without having to give a carefully drafted PC reason????

[Edited by MNHQ to remove poll]

I think there is confusion here. Some transwomen are dicks and think they have a right to sex, just like some men (and perhaps even some women) do. But the narrative of transwomen in general or predominantly or whatever demanding sex of individuals is misleading. What they're saying is that the reason that people who like women don't want to sleep with transwomen is because they have internalised transphobia and are bigots. They should interrogate their preferences to find out why they have this anti trans preference, and will most likely find its bigoted and bias social conditioning.

That's the argument.

Now, I think it's a crap argument and that there are good biological reasons why you might not be attracted and anyway it doesn't matter even if the reason is social. But that is the argument, no point arguing against one about how everyone must have sex with transwomen.

@Ijustreallywantacat

It's 'scaremongering' when women talk about their experiences of being coerced into sex?

It is scaremongering when a national news organisation runs a whole article focusing on the behaviour of a few people from a minority group, and then people are led to believe that it is representative of that group, and that that group are people we should be afraid of.

So no news out let should ever have reported on Catholic priests abusing children?

Religion is a protected characteristic. Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic, but most people won’t even belong to this protected characteristic as only a few ever seek grc.

Transwomen are male. Males are not a vulnerable or oppressed group. Women are. Lesbians are.

A long and thoughtful article on the BBC piece and responses to it, from Ian Leslie:

ianleslie.substack.com/p/under-pressure?r=956zy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=

This is a well known phenomenon, however much people like to deny it. It's not all MTF trans people, obviously, but it doesn't help anyone to pretend that a group of males (no more or less predatory than any other males) are a sacred caste who can do no wrong. These women have the right to a voice, like all victims of sexual assault and harassment.

I've been documenting the "cotton ceiling" in a thread on MN since early 2018.

"Cotton Ceiling" evidence thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3294339-cotton-ceiling-evidence-thread

@DellaPorter

Not denying a proportion of 80 odd lesbians via a social media poll reported upsetting experiences. But to generalise that into an attack on all trans women is a further unpleasant turn in the hate campaign.

Even in the article, the 'poll' isn't generalising -

'Angela created a questionnaire for lesbians and distributed it via social media, then published the results.

She said that of the 80 women who did respond, 56% reported being pressured or coerced to accept a trans woman as a sexual partner.

While acknowledging the sample may not be representative of the wider lesbian community, she believes it was important to capture their "points of view and stories".' (My bold).

And what about the rest of the women's experiences detailed in the article? Are you saying that they're lying? The screenshots of twitter posts by people stating as fact that lesbians who do not accept transwomen as sexual partners are transphobic bigots - have these been faked somehow?

No-one is saying that all transwomen are rapists or coercing women into sex they do not want. But clearly there is an issue. If organisations which are meant to be specifically for supporting LGBT+ rights (including lesbians) are not condemning this, surely that's a real betrayal of those this is happening to?

@DellaPorter

Not denying a proportion of 80 odd lesbians via a social media poll reported upsetting experiences. But to generalise that into an attack on all trans women is a further unpleasant turn in the hate campaign.

NATWALT, I see.

most trans people aren't out there trying to harangue women into sex.

No indeed. But there do seem to be a lot of other people willing to harangue women on their behalf.

I think the problem is that the loudest voices, as is common in many sections of society, do not represent the majority. These extreme views do not represent those of any of the trans women I know - by that I am not suggesting that it doesn’t happen. Disturbingly though, young people and those wanting to be considered allies are often influenced by these people and young trans women might start to believe that they are somehow entitled to sex with lesbians. The problem is the extremists who are being looked to as role models. Not the average trans woman you might meet in day to day life. The worrying thing is that the divisiveness of these extreme views harm both women and trans women just trying to go about their lives.

I could spend the rest of the thread posting tweets directed at lesbians by trans activists which threaten violence or deny the right to be exclusively same sex attracted (and to a lesser extent towards gay men who won't consider FTM trans people as potential partners. This all is socially coercive, even when in most cases that's as far as it goes. There is a problem and pretending it doesn't exist isn't going to wash.

This is stupid and I'm amazed young people (I'm guessing it will only be the women) think they have to give their bodies to show how kind they are. Have sex with people you want to everyone else can jog on and don't get to demand why or make judgements. No still means no and pity/solidarity/whatever is going on in your head shags aren't kind, theyre pathetic. Tell them to fuck off till they stop asking

Every woman alive has had some bloke try to pressurise her into sex at some point.

It would be far more remarkable if no transwoman (by which I mean translesbians with swinging dicks) ever pressurised a woman into sex than if some did.

So I don’t get why anyone thinks it’s unlikely. Particularly when some lesbians are on record saying it happened to them.

The fact that Nancy Kelley, Stonewall CEO can't unequivocally state that homosexuality is acceptable any more without saying people have to consider that they may have "prejudices" they need to unpack is really quite telling.

@Gwenhwyfar

I don't agree with the enthusiastic consent thing. You don't have to be enthusiastic every time. You have to consent and of course that should be informed consent.

"Nobody has any right to have sex with anybody.

Everybody has the right to choose who they do and don't have sex with.

Everybody has the right to withdraw consent to sexual activity at any point for any reason."

Of course.

This. I suspect it is more of an issue for young lesbians. Older lesbians will likely already be in established partnerships.

most trans people aren't out there trying to harangue women into sex

True, but there are quite a lot of trans people (women) out there trying to harangue women full stop. So it’s part of the same pattern.

@DellaPorter

Not denying a proportion of 80 odd lesbians via a social media poll reported upsetting experiences. But to generalise that into an attack on all trans women is a further unpleasant turn in the hate campaign.

This wasn't a poll, and the information hasn't been used to suggest that all trans women behave like this.

I don't understand why it's difficult to imagine that some people whose sex is male might use a trans identity to pressurise lesbians into sex.

Stonewall's response - that it is indeed transphobic to refuse sex simply on the basis of same sex attraction - just endorses the idea that same sex attraction is exclusionary.

It's the equivalent of the Catholic Church saying "Wash your mouth out for suggesting the father would act like that, and of course you must do anything he tells you".

I'm pretty trans friendly (ex is trans and we remain on good terms, friends are trans). I also know that some transwomen do try to pressure young lesbians into having sex they don't want, and think that is utterly wrong.

For example, I have a pastoral role in a university, and met with a young gay woman who had only just come out, who was terribly upset. Turns out she had taken someone home who she thought was a female bodied person, but when they took their clothes off, found out she was wrong. She backed, and was then verbally abused and punched. Understandably, she was very shaken up and worse, didn't feel she could talk to friends in the LGBT community about it. This was 3 years ago, so it's not new.

backed out

This is one of those areas I’m confused as fuck about to be quite honest. I’m a straight man, I have male genitalia. Lesbians won’t want to sleep with me for either or both of those reasons. I don’t feel aggressed against or that they are bigoted for not wanting to do so. In fact it seems to be a feature of the whole sexual orientation quite frankly!

This does not prevent me from having valuable friendships with Lesbians and wishing them all the best in life and in love. To be quite frank the subset of women who do NOT want to have sex with me is vast so singling out Lesbians isn’t really relevant 😂, but you know what? The number of women I don’t want to have sex with is equally vast so that’s entirely fine by me.

I’m not sure why a live and let live attitude is so beyond most people? I’d rather put my time and effort into the narrow pool of women that I both find attractive and find me so too, and hopefully find the one. Surely that is how it should work for anyone regardless of orientation, gender identity etc??

I also note as a straight man I’m NEVER in the crosshairs of these woke activists socially to accept straight trans women, why is it Lesbians that seem to always cop the flak for this? That seems… unfair? Dare I say bigoted??

If someone WERE to target me specifically on this issue, and one of the reasons I suspect they don’t is this: as a straight man part of the whole point of sexual relationships to me is procreation. That’s not to say every time I have sex I’m looking to become a father (that would be daft!), but the desire and aspiration is there and baked into my sexual drives on a fundamental level.

This. I suspect it is more of an issue for young lesbians. Older lesbians will likely already be in established partnerships.

They are, and can make "LwithTheT" statements, safe in the knowledge that they will not face the kind of social pressure exerted on younger lesbians.

Nancy Kelley, CEO of Stonewall didn't need to expend a lot of energy to condemn vocal activists all she needed to do was not put a But in her quote.

It's like the victim blaming:
"it's terrible you were raped but why were you walking home alone at night"

If you put a but you dont really stand by the first sentence.

Nancy Kelley says everyone who has a sexual preference is prejudiced.
I exclude women from my sexuality, I'm not prejudiced its because I am heterosexual. I appreciate that some woman are very attractive but I have zero sexual desire for them.

Funnily enough I've never had a lesbian say "you just haven't had a good enough clit lick" but I've heard men say to lesbian friends "you just haven't had good enough dick"
It's just another version of that coming from misogynists

Now, I think it's a crap argument and that there are good biological reasons why you might not be attracted and anyway it doesn't matter even if the reason is social. But that is the argument, no point arguing against one about how everyone must have sex with transwomen.

But it’s not just a “crap” argument. It’s an argument against same sex attraction. It’s hugely homophobic. Or more specifically lesbophobic, and misogynistic, because gay men don’t get it thrown at them. And it’s not just espoused by a few nutters. It’s telecast by activists with big followings. And it isn’t condemned by Stonewall, in fact, it’s reinforced.

Who does this argument benefit?

Gosh this is upsetting and convoluted. I wonder if there’s statistics on the percentage of trans laesbian ladies who (exclusively or actively ) date other trans ladies

Everyone should be able to turn sec down at any point, no questions asked.

However, people should also be able to consent for whatever reason they choose.

It is not for others to say that you have to be ‘enthusiastic’. As long as the consent is freely given , it can be for any reason whatsoever.