Is fancying a particular sex and not a particular gender bigoted?

[ArcheryAnnie]

Changed name for obvious reasons.

Provoked by this article - which is getting a depressing amount of traction, by a blogger on twitter called stavvers: www.donotlink.com/framed?43198

Short version: if your sexual preferences are linked in any way to the shape of your potential partner's genitals, then you are a bigot. So, eg, if you are straight, you should be attracted to men who have vulvas, and if you are a lesbian, you should be attracted to women with penises. (This isn't saying "it's totes ok to fancy trans lesbians or transmen", which would be cool, it's saying "if you pay any attention to the shape of someone's genitals at all, you are a bigot".) Any way of Doing Sexuality apart from stavvers' way is creepy and weird, and also cissexist and bigoted.

Most of this was aimed at women, naturally. Men's preferences were an afterthought.

In the twitter storm that followed, stavvers and her allies spent a lot of time tee-heeing about how any woman who disagreed with her was probably crap in bed, and all these lesbians who objected it this were prudes who didn't know how to have sex, were probably just holding hands in the dark, and .....dear god it was like a timewarp into the 1950s. Lesbians who choose not to sleep with people - men or women - who have penises are prudish and frigid! How hilarious! How new!

This would all be irrelevant if stavvers was seen as what she is (one of those tedious people who thrive on being "shocking" and "edgy"), but she's got a depressing amount of support for it.

This is a really binary view of the world, isn't it? (I know that's a bit of an obvious statement in the context, but bear with me). It's as if everyone who is attracted to women-people is attracted to them in exactly the same way, so bodies shouldn't matter any more. There must be millions of women who are attracted to women, also quite like penises, yet don't necessarily fancy every single woman and/or person with a penis they come across.

As an aside, I find it odd this debate is always framed in terms of lesbians' choices. Lesbians aren't generally into penises. Plenty of women are into both penises and women.

Are men (or women) who are attracted to large breasts socially influenced? Possibly (leaving aside any evo psych...). Are they bigoted? Err, no.

Oh, but everyone is naturally attracted to large breasts, right?

There does seem to be an assumption that women should be attracted to whatever's convenient for society, doesn't there?

The thing is that lesbians who don't want to have sex with people with penises are not saying that people with penises who identify as women can't do that. They aren't saying that people with penises can't have sex with anyone ever. All they are saying is that they personally don't want to have sex with people with penises.

I can understand that some trans people with penises will find that hard to hear, you know, that a particular person doesn't want to have sex with them. I can even understand why it might make a trans person with a penis upset. What I don't understand is how personal choice in something as intimate as sex automatically becomes bigotry when it relates to trans* people with penises.

I have fancied some people who haven't wanted to have sex with me. Does that mean they are bigoted toward me? Can I start a campaign?

kim I would say part of the problem is an expectation by some that the penis would be used. Stavvers definitely isn't ruling this out when she makes her claims about bigotry.

In DonkeySkin 's link above, there is a quote from a transwoman complaining about being "shut off" from PIV and how women "not even considering how having my penis inside you is not like having a man's penis inside you" hurts.

Thing is, though, while I myself like cock (sorry, I have no idea how not to be crude on this thread), I can believe some would find it offputting. It's not a pretty part of the human anatomy, is it?

That said I do agree that it might be other things that mattered as much.

What I think is a fundamental problem here is that we are not - any of us - encouraged to believe that sexuality might be something we can trust our instincts on. I really notice this with very homophobic heterosexual men - the idea they might find anything taboo to be sexy (even if it's something really basic like the revelation that women do grow hair on their legs!) is so offensive, they don't reject it on a personal level (which would be fine) but on a structural level, which pushes everyone else to repress any instinct to find that intrinsically sexy.

Well, I can understand not going through surgery. It's not great at the moment, is it?

I can believe some people are happy with the idea and, obviously, more power to their arms.

Doesn't change the basic issue that no group of women is going to be attracted to someone purely because that person insists they are bigots. And I agree, the idea they should be is based in this idea of women as 'receptors' of sex who are passive.

kim - might it be that some people are happy with having penises but perhaps feel revulsion to things like growing facial hair or whatever? I know I am coming at this from a perspective that gender is a construct and this makes me less likely to see why people would reject a coherent set of sex characteristics, but is this impossible?

kim187 - plenty transwomen have fully functioning penises and refer to them as strapless strap ons.

There are Trans men who get pregnant through PIV and give birth to babies. I would have thought being pregnant and giving birth is a pretty big reminder that you have a female body, but it doesn't stop some doing it.

Just because Partner A owns a strap-on (or a penis) doesn't mean that Partner B is duty bound to have sex with the strap-on/penis.
Partner B may even feel that Partner A is a bit of a bore, banging on about their strap-on/penis and that this might be one factor which leads Partner B to start looking for Partner C.

I'm totally cool with any woman going to bed with any other woman who wants to go to bed with them, whether or not either are trans and/or have had surgery. I'm not cool with anyone requiring anyone else to go to bed with anyone they don't want to, for any reason at all.

Kim, alas, there are quite a few trans women who make a big public thing of having PIV and sex with their penises (which really can't make life easier for the rest of you, as it's stuff that tends to stick in the consciousness).

Eg: the young comedian Avery Edison, who became a cause celebre when she went to Canada without papers and ended up (briefly) in a men's prison. She wrote a notorious blogpost, describing her encounter with a woman she picked up in a lesbian bar. She revealed her trans status (non-surgery), the other woman was cool with it, and they went off and had what sounds like an enthusiastic and consensual night together. And then Avery writes a sad, sad blog about this other woman's sad, sad transphobia, because the one sex act this other woman would not do was PIV and that really, really bugged Avery.

I've seen other things on twitter (I didn't screenshot them because I had no desire ever to clap eyes on them again) about, eg, trans women talking about their "hard rod" fucking their lesbian partner, etc etc. And I've seen some very prominent trans women say that they don't have a problem with their penis at all. (Which I don't understand as I thought dysphoria was a standard thing, but there you go.)

Have people heard of the "cotton ceiling"? This is an idea that women won't generally have sex with MtoF's and therefore MtoF's need help to get women to have sex with them.

The concept exists because most lesbians will not have sex with MtoF's.

And incidentally I have seen plenty of MtoF's say that they prefer to have sex with lesbians rather than bi women, because with a bisexual women they can never know if she is having sex with trhem because she sees them as a women or a man.

A fairly small group of Trans people say you need body dysphoria to be Trans e.g. Drakensberg on Tumblr. Most say you don't have to have any body dysphoria at all.

Coming from a perspective where I really hope (and believe) that if we got rid of constructs of gender life would be better for all of us, I am uncomfortable with the idea that we should judge transwomen who have penises or transmen who have babies. Sure, in specific instances it can be an issue - eg., I have issues with people who say 'well, pregnancy isn't a feminist issue because men get pregnant too!'. But surely, someone who wants to be a man and wants to have babies is someone who is constrained by painfully shit and limiting ideas about gender?

If they wouldn't want to change their body, but want to change how they're seen by society, well, isn't that what we all do?!

I agree LRD that we shouldn't blame individuals. But I am pretty boggled at the idea that you want everyone to see you as a man, but you get pregnant and give birth.

Surely one of the benefits of sex without PIV is no risk of PG? And the lack of unwanted PG risk (and minimal STD transmission risk) is implicit in lesbian sex, no?

Maybe some MtoF are taking hormones which make them infertile but not incapable of erection so maybe I'm wrong that that is a risk?

Oh, and if a straight man had a lovely ONS with a straight woman and then blogged about her not having PIV, grumble grumble, he too would be a massive nincompoop.

Bill, you are right that is a massive health issue. In particular FtoM's tend to be resistant to having cervical smears and preventing STD's. But lesbians with MtoF partners where they have PIV, may not be used to thinking about contraception or STD's either. There are a whole lot of health needs taht can be difficult to meet.