Not having sex with someone because they don't have the right genitals is transphobic. No prizes for guessing who's claiming this

[Doyoumind]

RM is busy trying to justify their support for a particularly unpleasant tweet yesterday. For those of you who are blocked, I'll add some grabs.

Apparently it means not feeling sexual attraction towards anyone. But you still want sex, like, as an activity having no connection towards being attracted towards the people you're having sex with?

Which honestly just sounds like some sort of emotional problem to me, and not something to celebrate.

I feel like when people first started using that term it meant "doesn't have any real interest in sex, libido pretty much zero" and now like most things words mean whatever anyone feels like at the time.

The only person I've never known who claimed to be asexual was into some really weird porn. I always thought he just needed some serious therapy.

At least one thing in common with RM then.

Hm. I think this might make more sense if we knew how RM defines "sexual attraction."

I'm far from an expert but I was under the impression it's something to do with that whole tingly undercarriage thing being prompted by the presence or actions of someone else, and orientation is defined with reference to the reproductive sex of said someones.

Nope, I'm no closer to reconciling this "asexual lesbian" thing.

But you still want sex, like, as an activity

So that's wanking, then? Is RM confusing asexuality and autosexuality? Or does RM only seek sex with bodies-as-objects and isn't sexually-attracted to bodies-as-subjects?

I’m sharing Sandy Draws Badly’s guide to sexuality because it’s just too good not to.

I opened up that photo in the hopes that it would help.

Now I'm left wondering how often aromantic pansexuals turn up at the GP with an embarrassing rash and have to be given a gentle lecture about which foodstuffs it's appropriate to introduce to one's genitals.

Not convinced it's an improvement, really, but a welcome diversion nonetheless. Thanks Empress.

Tyro

I think we just have to keep explaining to straight men that they’re transphobic if they refuse to suck dick.

Sorry, guys, but those are the rules. We didn’t make them up.

Maybe some leaflets handed out by, oh, an organisation of women allies, with all the right quotes, explaining the rules, would help get the straight men on board with the gender liberation movement?

I think we just have to keep explaining to straight men that they’re transphobic if they refuse to suck dick.

ON YOUR KNEES, CIS SCUM!

I feel like when people first started using that term it meant "doesn't have any real interest in sex, libido pretty much zero" and now like most things words mean whatever anyone feels like at the time.

Yes, totally.

I explained the ‘Cyclist conundrum’ to a gay colleague. He wasn’t impressed...

Well I tried to explain. It’s not easy with a concept along the lines of ‘bla bla bla burrrrrrrp’

I feel like when people first started using that term it meant "doesn't have any real interest in sex, libido pretty much zero" and now like most things words mean whatever anyone feels like at the time.

Oooh oooh I remember this one! It got explained to me when I tried pointing out that biological females seeking out sex with biological males weren't lesbians, but bisexual or hetero, depending on if sex with other biological females was involved.

The answers I got were something like: if someone likes and chooses the name and identity of lesbian (presumably because of how it feels to them to present that identity to others since it obviously isn't a factual description) then they are lesbian. No, it doesn't hurt lesbians when their definition is forcibly reoriented for them, and isn't disrespectful or appropriative at all. (A lot of shut up, shut up, la la la la, you're wrong and those people don't matter anyway kind of posts at this point). And then I got called homophobic for trying to insist that homosexuality involved, you know, actual homosexuality.

So there you go, you're educated! Be a vegan who eats steak, be an asexual who likes it five times a night, enjoy your cosplay And bugger the people left damaged in your wake of course, because they're just wet blankets.

ON YOUR KNEES, CIS SCUM!

Some vaginas are outies, that’s all.

Boils down to anyone can call themselves anything they like, redefining things to suit them, but they need to accept that if they go around for example declaiming that they're a type of vegan who eats meat and animal produce, many people are going to think they're a bit weird.

And if they go around then trying to forcibly re brand veganism as eating meat and animal produce and harassing and shaming those who don't because their version of veganism is obviously better and more inclusive and Other Reasons Too, then they are likely to get told to fuck off.

Because shrieking 'don't try to control me!' at people while demanding that they submit to being controlled by you is not normal, healthy behaviour.

Michelle so being a lesbian is nothing to do with physical sexual behaviour or internal sexual desire, and everything to do with which word-label you happen to like the sound of?

I'm pretty sure that's not how sexual-orientation words are supposed to work. Presumably I missed a woke memo. No wonder I've been struggling with my own sexuality for years - there was me thinking it was about what flavour sexed bodies one's partial to shagging!

Does anyone know where they keep the master list of shiny new genderal orientations? Because I need to add "omnidirectional lysistrata" to it.

I hear you Tyro , I've been lesbianing wrong for some decades now and no one ever leafleted me or contacted me to let me know it wasn't about being attracted exclusively to other women at all! Doh.

And such a boring restriction on my authentic self, when I was limited only to actual facts. Sheesh. I am now of course a pansexual superhero.

It's all so confusing, Michelle! I thought I only had to choose from four options (this one, that one, both, or neither). Is it actually a free text box? Is there a character limit, or can I submit a twenty thousand word essay?

Since I've been apparently lesbianing wrong (albeit happily and functionally) and definitely womaning wrong I'm probably not qualified to advise....

I'm starting to think on RM's guidance that if you're enjoying it, you're probably morally in the wrong. Kind of a la Mr Murdstone and the whole middle ages.

I have a lesbian friend who is very out and proud about her sexuality; and who knows exactly what sex body she likes. But who at the same time believes twaw (And seems to have agp men as friends in her local gay bar along with the female lesbians)

I just can't understand it. She would cut me off dead as a bigoted transphobe if I said anything to her so I don't.

This is why identity politics is so bloody antithetical to any traditionally progressive/leftist positions. If you understand class politics, you can see right through this boggling need to to 'identify' as something for any other reason than you are actually part of that designated group. Because if all you have done is appropriate a label, with no consideration of the issues that face the group which you have claimed entry to, then you actively undermine any and all measures taken to alleviate the bad things that group faces (so, white people identifying as 'black' and taking funding set aside for BAME things etc.)

Of course, a lot of this is young people desperately trying to find their tribe, which is what the young do. But we used to acknowledge that as youthful navel gazing, not profound enlightenment.

Agree. And it comes from a place of privilege to the point of being oblivious to real need of others, or even the capacity of having empathy or care for anyone but themselves.

As shown by the Dartford group who were struggling so much with the facilities for their homeless, severely struggling, working class service users being taken over by affluent highly educated white English students wanting to lecture their service users on how they were actually more oppressed and in need than people living rough/ victims of sexual assault/ extreme end survival need, and instruct those people on identity politics and complex directed language.

The service users did not care. The students were oblivious to their own crassness.

Here’s the US version of the Deptford group:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=moWe3rk7LzQ

(Should be discussing economic justice and worker’s rights, instead get distracted by ‘points of personal privilege’ because someone addressed the group as ‘hey guys’ 😬)

I'm pretty sure that's not how sexual-orientation words are supposed to work.

My understanding of how language works is that we use words to communicate with others, and therefore it's helpful if the words have a meaning that's consistent and understood by everyone. So, if lesbian means "female homosexual", then describing someone/yourself as a lesbian conveys useful information.

If "lesbian" means "I dunno, that term just feels right to me, you know?" then that conveys no useful information t all, other than possibly that the speaker is a bit of an arsehole.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”