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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

It's just so sad

122 replies

Zerogravity · 22/05/2022 12:48

Can't say this in real life so am writing it here....a friend of mine's daughter started identitying as a boy a few years ago now. This morning he posted mastectomy photos. (And yes, I am saying he now). It just makes me feel so sad that he didn't feel it was possible to transition without surgery but I also hope that he won't regret it iyswim? I don't really understand how this surgery can have become so acceptable in such a short space of time. It's brutal.😥

OP posts:
andtheycalledthewindmoriah · 22/05/2022 17:50

KimikosNightmare · 22/05/2022 14:56

Well , even setting aside the fact my own experience of breastfeeding was the single most miserable, depressing and painful 3 months of my entire life I think sensitivity and pleasure might be a more convincing argument for a teenager.

As for "health benefits" - given that what has "health benefits" seems to change on a regular basis I'm not convinced anything beyond " don't smoke, eat some fruit and vegetables, get a bit of exercise and don't do illegal drugs" is useful. "Breastfeeding" would be pretty low down on the list.

What is healthy and what's not doesn't change.

Medical consensus does.

That's why you can't rely on it.

andtheycalledthewindmoriah · 22/05/2022 17:51

KimikosNightmare · 22/05/2022 14:56

Well , even setting aside the fact my own experience of breastfeeding was the single most miserable, depressing and painful 3 months of my entire life I think sensitivity and pleasure might be a more convincing argument for a teenager.

As for "health benefits" - given that what has "health benefits" seems to change on a regular basis I'm not convinced anything beyond " don't smoke, eat some fruit and vegetables, get a bit of exercise and don't do illegal drugs" is useful. "Breastfeeding" would be pretty low down on the list.

Far from insignificant

www.google.com/search?q=how+does+breastfeeding+help+mother&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBGB882GB882&oq=how+does+breastfeeding+help+mother&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l9.3643j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

GoodJanetBadJanet · 22/05/2022 17:57

I'm guessing you're not a woman because you'd know how hard it is to get sterilised as a woman under the age of 30
Why would I not be a woman if I don't know how hard it is to get under the age of 30?
You do realise that we don't all have the same experiences, right?
When I've mentioned having kids and breastfeeding even on this thread, and my experiences, you conclude I'm probably a man.

Ridiculous - MN will verify for you instead if you're still not sure, comes across as bit troll hunty.

PermanentTemporary · 22/05/2022 17:58

My work is often with people who've had complications after surgery, so I can't see any surgical intervention as anything other than regrettable and hopefully a last resort. The young transmen I know who all seem to want mastectomy- i just can't help hoping they find a,way back to accepting themselves as they are. I was able to express my distress when a young female friend talked about having a breast enlargement a few years ago, I don't see why I shouldn't feel upset about any young woman having surgery that is patently due to barriers to being happy in their own body.

Discovereads · 22/05/2022 18:00

nepeta · 22/05/2022 17:48

I am curious of certain synchronicity here:

This trend of transitioning out of being a woman, the increasing pornification of the female body, the increasing focus of the interior of the female body as a work place (in surrogacy and sex work), and then the trend of erasing the names for the female sex, all these are happening at the same time.

Something odd is happening to the female sex and the female body.

The only true thing you said is the trend of being able to have gender confirming surgery due to modern medical advances giving people more choice and control over their bodies.

There is no increasing pornification of the female body. Porn has been around since the Ancients. They’ve found pornographic pictures, mosaics, graffiti that are over 3,000 years old. And back then, live sex shows were common entertainment. All through the medieval, renaissance, Georgian, Victorian times there was still pornography despite repeated efforts to ban it.

There is no increasing focus on the interior of the female body as a place of work (sex work, surrogacy) either. Sex work has been historically always part of human society and often linked to slavery. Of course, forced surrogacy for profit existed too as masters often would impregnate their female slaves by raping them specifically so they could breed more slaves and then sell them for money. This was done from millenia ago up to just two centuries ago. The trend is actually decreasing not increasing as more women have rights than ever before.

WallaceinAnderland · 22/05/2022 18:01

21 is definitely old enough to make your own decisions. But not wise enough to know that sometimes you regret those decisions. I think this is why most adult transwomen don't do away with the penis.

GoodJanetBadJanet · 22/05/2022 18:02

I was able to express my distress when a young female friend talked about having a breast enlargement a few years ago
See - why would you be distressed if your friend had a breast enlargement?
Seriously, why, genuine question?
Is her body. How does her having a breast enlargement distress or impact you in any way? It's her body. Not yours.

Abhannmor · 22/05/2022 18:10

Sunquench · 22/05/2022 17:28

Hope it wasn’t on the NHS!!

Apparently the Westminster Hospital has been tasked with these ops by the NHS. This is essentially cosmetic surgery so I don't know how they justify it . You can understand it if someone needs facial reconstruction after an accident. But this is like elective vandalism.

Clymene · 22/05/2022 18:14

PermanentTemporary · 22/05/2022 17:58

My work is often with people who've had complications after surgery, so I can't see any surgical intervention as anything other than regrettable and hopefully a last resort. The young transmen I know who all seem to want mastectomy- i just can't help hoping they find a,way back to accepting themselves as they are. I was able to express my distress when a young female friend talked about having a breast enlargement a few years ago, I don't see why I shouldn't feel upset about any young woman having surgery that is patently due to barriers to being happy in their own body.

Every woman i know has regretted her breast implants. None have got them renewed. We need psychological support, not surgery.

Oh and @GoodJanetBadJanet - I didn't say you're a troll. I don't think I've ever had any contact with you (unless you've changed your name?) and I'm not even interested enough to search your previous posts. Crack on.

AwomanfromNorthampton · 22/05/2022 18:18

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nepeta · 22/05/2022 18:23

There is no increasing pornification of the female body. Porn has been around since the Ancients. They’ve found pornographic pictures, mosaics, graffiti that are over 3,000 years old. And back then, live sex shows were common entertainment. All through the medieval, renaissance, Georgian, Victorian times there was still pornography despite repeated efforts to ban it.

There is no increasing focus on the interior of the female body as a place of work (sex work, surrogacy) either. Sex work has been historically always part of human society and often linked to slavery. Of course, forced surrogacy for profit existed too as masters often would impregnate their female slaves by raping them specifically so they could breed more slaves and then sell them for money. This was done from millenia ago up to just two centuries ago. The trend is actually decreasing not increasing as more women have rights than ever before.

Online porn has truly changed the availability of porn, so you are mistaken about nothing having changed in the history of porn. The consumption of porn has never been as widespread as it is now, and that includes the consumption of misogynistic porn. It's available at home, and it is very difficult to stop pre-teens from accessing it and probably creating their ideas about female sexuality, say, from it when it's not actually written to reflect that.

I also disagree that there has been no increasing focus on the commercialisation of the female body, but I compare this to more recent events than what happened millennia ago.

There's a reframing of sex work, say, as just another type of low-paid female work, without any real focus on that 'female' term, i.e., that almost every single customer in prostitution is male and the majority of the workers are female (but not the 'manager class'). I see this as part of the general erasure of the female sex.

OldCrone · 22/05/2022 18:25

The only true thing you said is the trend of being able to have gender confirming surgery due to modern medical advances giving people more choice and control over their bodies.

What is 'gender confirming surgery'? Why does anyone need surgery to 'confirm' their 'gender'? What does changing one's body to look more like the opposite sex have to do with 'gender'?

Why can't anyone be any 'gender' they want in a body of either sex? Why all this surgery?

OldCrone · 22/05/2022 18:27

Men manage just fine being 'transwomen' with 'girl dicks'. Why can't a young woman who wants to be a man have 'man breasts'?

ChiefInspectorParker · 22/05/2022 18:29

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MagnoliaTaint · 22/05/2022 18:32

Discovereads · 22/05/2022 18:00

The only true thing you said is the trend of being able to have gender confirming surgery due to modern medical advances giving people more choice and control over their bodies.

There is no increasing pornification of the female body. Porn has been around since the Ancients. They’ve found pornographic pictures, mosaics, graffiti that are over 3,000 years old. And back then, live sex shows were common entertainment. All through the medieval, renaissance, Georgian, Victorian times there was still pornography despite repeated efforts to ban it.

There is no increasing focus on the interior of the female body as a place of work (sex work, surrogacy) either. Sex work has been historically always part of human society and often linked to slavery. Of course, forced surrogacy for profit existed too as masters often would impregnate their female slaves by raping them specifically so they could breed more slaves and then sell them for money. This was done from millenia ago up to just two centuries ago. The trend is actually decreasing not increasing as more women have rights than ever before.

I'm sorry, are you actually here defending pornography and prostitution because - let me see - slave owners raped female slaves? Can you talk me through the steps of logic you've used to arrive at this position, please?

Oh, wait, you're saying that the trend for porn/prostitution/surrogacy is decreasing because women have more rights, I see, beg your pardon! Yes, let's hope so, otherwise it would be a really depressing situation.

Sunnytwobridges · 22/05/2022 18:37

KimikosNightmare · 22/05/2022 14:00

Seriously? That's your best argument against this?

I was just about to post the same thing 😂 like what…????

Clangyleg · 22/05/2022 18:55

Not to mention the side effects of hormones, the angry mood and behaviour. I am really angry that distressed and disturbed young women are being persuaded by largely middle aged men as well as other deluded young women that wrecking their bodies is the answer to the problems of harassment abuse and surviving as girls and women in this patriarchal society. The mental health issues are unlikely to be resolved by changing their bodies. This is how the persuasion happens..by others saying it is a good outcome. Let’s not do that.

nightwakingmoon · 22/05/2022 18:59

Discovereads · 22/05/2022 18:00

The only true thing you said is the trend of being able to have gender confirming surgery due to modern medical advances giving people more choice and control over their bodies.

There is no increasing pornification of the female body. Porn has been around since the Ancients. They’ve found pornographic pictures, mosaics, graffiti that are over 3,000 years old. And back then, live sex shows were common entertainment. All through the medieval, renaissance, Georgian, Victorian times there was still pornography despite repeated efforts to ban it.

There is no increasing focus on the interior of the female body as a place of work (sex work, surrogacy) either. Sex work has been historically always part of human society and often linked to slavery. Of course, forced surrogacy for profit existed too as masters often would impregnate their female slaves by raping them specifically so they could breed more slaves and then sell them for money. This was done from millenia ago up to just two centuries ago. The trend is actually decreasing not increasing as more women have rights than ever before.

I’m a historian in this field and this post is some of the most unmitigated bollocks I’ve ever read.

MagnoliaTaint · 22/05/2022 19:06

There is that, too, nightwakingmoon.

nightwakingmoon · 22/05/2022 19:06

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nightwakingmoon · 22/05/2022 19:45

Can you confirm on thread why my last two posts (about historical pornography, and about body dysmorphic disorder), have been deleted, MNHQ? I did not break any talk guidelines at all and would like a explanation for the deletions please.

Discovereads · 22/05/2022 19:50

nightwakingmoon · 22/05/2022 18:59

I’m a historian in this field and this post is some of the most unmitigated bollocks I’ve ever read.

What field would that be? You’re certainly not an Ancient Historian because everything I’ve written is accurate and true.

Clymene · 22/05/2022 19:54

I think your POV is a bit one dimensional with single syllable words tbh @Discovereads but I'm not an academic.

Discovereads · 22/05/2022 20:10

‘The consumption of porn has never been as widespread as it is now, and that includes the consumption of misogynistic porn’

Well they didn’t have video or photographic porn. But they had it painted on their vases, their walls at home, in scrolls/books. Sex slaves in brothels were very cheap and accessible to all economic classes of men and it was socially acceptable, even encouraged to abuse them.

The earliest figurines in existence are of naked big breasted women and date from the Neolithic so 24,000 to 26,000 years ago. For so many to have survived that long, it had to have been common.

Just because it wasn’t digital doesn’t mean it wasn’t widespread.

nightwakingmoon · 22/05/2022 20:25

@Discovereads I’m a historian of sexuality and feminism, as well as, interestingly, visual culture and screen media.

As I pointed out (in my reply to you which someone has reported and which MN has deleted for no apparent reason), I’d be grateful if you could point me towards the Ancient Greek or Stone Age equivalent of Pornhub, because some outline cave paintings of fertility goddesses, or even plates with phalloi on them, cannot possibly be compared to modern live camera hardcore pornography accessible to everyone via the internet. To say it is the same thing is laughable.

Until the mechanical reproduction of images hardly anyone even saw an artwork at all - your average person before 1800 never even saw more than a few representational images their entire life, and most of those were in a religious context. You forget there were no public museums, no galleries, no public libraries, no reproduction technology for images for vast swathes of history. And very heavy laws censoring what could be printed or shown on stage. (Not just for religious reasons, either - the monarch’s representatives censored most early modern printing and performance.) There were very extensive blasphemy and decency laws. (No, medieval peasants were not witnessing live sex shows. A few Roman nobles might have, but that’s about the extent of it. Too many episodes of Rome, maybe?)

Until very very recently a few saucy engravings and a copy of Fanny Hill or My Secret Life was as explicit as it got, I’m afraid. Photographic and any other pornography was heavily regulated and censored until very very recently. It is just simply wrong to say that pornography today is anything like erotic art in the vast vast majority of the historical past. Even those images and texts which we might consider proto-pornographic were consumed - even seen - only by a very limited number of people - almost all of them men. Even filmed pornography was heavily censored - legally - until the advent of the internet.

There has been literally no time in history when filmed pornography of the current level of explicit content has been available to anyone in the way it has during the last twenty years. Pretending that it has is just vacuous. You think we can’t tell the difference between, say, a MADE UP fictional Georgian erotic novella which sold in a limited private print run of 600 copies, and live action violent teen anal videos of real people just a click away on our phones? Are you stupid?

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