Concept of ‘exclusively same sex attracted’

[aseriesofstillimages]

I have seen various people on this forum say that to be gay or a lesbian is to be ‘exclusively same sex attracted’, and that therefore, for example, a woman who is attracted to or in a relationship with a trans woman cannot correctly describe herself as a lesbian.

Setting aside the problems with presuming to correct another person’s understanding of their own identity, I can’t see how this absolutist approach is logically sustainable. If I am a non-trans woman who has only ever - to my knowledge - been attracted to other non-trans women, but then am attracted to and get off with a woman in a bar who I subsequently find out is trans, do I immediately stop being a lesbian? What if I don’t stop finding the trans woman attractive after learning that she’s trans? What if I never find out she was trans - is it the case that I have ceased being a lesbian, but will never know this?

*quiet not quite

The podcast harsh reality revisits the early 2000s dating show when a group of men believe they are competing for the heart of a woman who was is finally revealed to be a trans woman.
the men were furious because they felt they'd been misled, humiliated, manipulated and conned. They did not redefine themselves as gay.
I don't get why trans can't be a category, given that binary is meant to be so restrictive?

If you do work in the gov depth God help us. Your grasp on reality seems tenuous. You preach and insult every post but accuse others of preaching to you, all because you don't understand words that describe sexuality. Or the EA 2010 wording. You think it is legal to pretend to be a woman even though this has been tested in court. You say the comparator for a tw is a woman (or non tw, wtf how offensive can you get!) But legally the comparator for a tw is a man. You think the general public agree with you!! OK then.

97 and counting down...

It’s important to remember there will have been many more lesbians at Pride who did not agree with the actions of the protesters (at least, if it was anything like london pride, which I attended).

It’s OK to disagree. Gays and lesbians are not all part of the Borg …

If you want lesbian to now mean anyone who identifies as one.

What word should those women who are exclusively attracted to the same sex use to describe themselves and that specific group?

Do they no longer require, or have a right to, a word which describes exclusively female only attracted?

The podcast harsh reality revisits the early 2000s dating show when a group of men believe they are competing for the heart of a woman who was is finally revealed to be a trans woman.

"There's something about Miriam" I think was the show?

https://www.realitytvworld.com/news/fox-reality-debut-uk-there-something-about-miriam-october-31-5566.php

However the six suitors got over their claims of injury and public humiliation in return for an undisclosed cash settlementnt^ which various reports pegged at anywhere between $150,000 and $250,000 a person clearing the way for the program to debut on Sky One in late February 2004. As part of the settlement, Brighter Pictures the Endemol production company subsidiary that had produced There's Something About Miriamriam-- also issued a public statement apologizing for "any upset" caused by the program.^

Goodness, you'd have thought they would have been fine with it, no one would care what sex Miriam was surely?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

www.them.us/story/cis-trans-dating/amp

Thanks for the link. I found it pretty creepy tbh. Because the conclusion was that really it must be a phobia and social conditioning responsible for unwillingness to date a trans person. Why can't people simply have sexual preferences?

Why do we need to coerce people into having sex with trans people by pretending they will otherwise be some kind of genital or reproductive obsessed deviant?

This reads as someone who really hasn't thought things through. If people are transitioning for the utopia of being absolutely indistinguishable from their desired sex for all people and all reasons, they will be sorely disappointed. It's actually a real problem to raise people's expectations of this and then tell them that they can't have them because transphobia is all around them.

I cannot see a scenario in which I would as a straight woman be attracted to a TW (unattractive for a partner to want to be the same sex to me, I would want a partner to be happy with being a man and certainly wouldn't be attracted post-op and that might always be a possibility) or a TM (I want my partner to have a penis - a proper one, that has spontaneous erections and has feeling in it, have always been very swayed by hormones/smell when dating blokes, very clear part of attraction for me). Obviously according to this I must be a massive transphobe.

Sexual orientation harms no one and is nobody else's business. I'd be surprised if it was created by socialisation, otherwise there'd be strict social or biologically driven rules about how we socialise children so as not to suddenly extinguish the species.
I'm curious why it's suddenly under scrutiny in this way; and not other behaviours which could actually be accounted for by socialisation, and are harmful to others.

(I want my partner to have a penis - a proper one, that has spontaneous erections and has feeling in it, have always been very swayed by hormones/smell when dating blokes, very clear part of attraction for me). Obviously according to this I must be a massive transphobe.

One of the highlights(?) of Null's recent 4-hour stream about his server troubles, linked over on that thread, was a message passed on by Null from someone who had experienced this first-hand. I don't think I can post the whole thing here, but here's part of it.

I fell for the whole "transwomen are women" line and have actually had sex with a transwoman [...] It is NOTHING like a vagina [...] about as exciting as fingering a very deep belly button.

Oh, and the male body that goes with it still feels male. You never really realize the texture of a woman's skin and the shape of her skeletal frame is so important to the sexual experience, but it really is. There are a thousand different physical cues and sensations that say male, male, male... even with your eyes closed, or maybe ESPECIALLY with your eyes closed.

(Timestamp 1:23:25 for the full gory details).

I mean you can somewhat imagine why someone might prefer, in extremis, to be a simulacrum of the opposite sex, but that's always going to be of limited appeal, because it's only ever going to be a simulacrum, and people are interested in the entire package. You will just end up being neither one thing nor the other.

The fundamental reality is that we don't have the ability to perform sex changes on people, even at an external appearance level. Maybe it could improve, but it's very, very crude at the moment.

I remember on a twitter thread a while back saying how attracted I am to men's wrists - the particular arrangement of the bones, the contrast of small bones and bigger hands. They seemed to think it was a ridiculous idea that wrists could look or feel different between the sexes. But of course they do.

If someone is only attracted to a female then they are only attracted to females - why on EARTH would anyone take it personally? It's a big old world, go and find someone who is ENTHUSIASTIC about being attracted to you!

Frankly, if you find you have to persuade/berate/explain/convince someone that they ought to be attracted to you, or feel that you need to shame someone for their sexual orientation you are the one who is highly, highly problematic.

''I find this group of people attractive therefore they must find me attractive' is NOT HOW SEXUALITY WORKS

@ArabellaScott - spot on. But trans women take it personally because they don’t like women asserting their boundaries, and they want to use trans rights ideology to allow them to fulfil their desire to have sex with lesbians. I think it comes from a very homophobic belief that lesbianism is really just a choice, and women only make that choice because they haven’t had sex with the right man yet.

And, of course, even if it was a choice (which I know it’s not), men don’t like women making choices that deny men something they want.

And, of course, even if it was a choice (which I know it’s not), men don’t like women making choices that deny men something they want.

This is so true. I never really got it completely until this issue was mainstream.

This is so true. I never really got it completely until this issue was mainstream.

I certainly would have dismissed it as daft feminist hyperbole. It's very hard to do so now.

It's been a wake up call to me on these themed threads in the last few days that there are women right here on MN who don't believe that other females should be able to refuse male people sexual access to them.

That a female has no business to wanting a life that will never be sexually useful to a male - even when the male demands it and makes all sorts of special pleading for it.

I see the women on AIBU constantly who show really remarkable misogyny - from the 'yes he just tried to strangle you but you probably annoyed him, so dry your face, go and give him a big cuddle, say sorry and make him a nice dinner' posts, to the sniffy, reproachful 'you don't like her do you?' posts to the woman who's posted that her MiL is constantly unkind and invasive and inappropriate with her. Just somehow I'd thought we'd got over the homophobia part.

But no. Like feminism, it was something female people were allowed to borrow for a bit until male people found an aspect of it that they wanted. Now female people have to give it back and not resist or complain, and it's the same core thought: if a female or her space or resource is not in some way serving a biological male then she is selfish and misbehaving.

And no one with these awful attitudes have the slightest problem knowing who is the servant and who gets served, there is no confusion at all. None. No checks of any kind needed, no concerns about misattituding, because it's based on binary biological sex based thinking. Despite a lot of performative stuff about avocados.

Hence the never ending 'I graciously permit you to say no on an individual basis but not to declare your body off limits to the entire sex class of males'.

Exactly. I interrogate that response. Every single time. Because that is what is meant by it.

Some people have actually reflected, because they're coming from a place of promoting consent and freedom from coercion, rather than gender identity ideology, and said "I'd not seen it like that before, but I see your point".

We can see aseriesofstillimages trying to use that logic against women here by saying we're implying that straight women shouldn't have the right to say no to any man they choose and lesbians can. She knows that isn't what we are saying.

LOL the description given to Null from a man who had sex with a TW leapt out at me as well as it left nothing to the imagination. The blow by blow account of what his experience was like was eye-popping. Clearly the guy is open-minded otherwise he wouldn't have had sex relations with a TW but in no uncertain terms he describes how the experience was in no way similar to having sex with a female.

And this is why the best that gets offered to female homosexuals is 'learn to cope' (with straight sex)

Because it is demanding that a female homosexual intentionally forces herself to engage in sex with a person she perceives and experiences as male in order to nurture the male person's inner definition and identity.

It is the ultimate in using females. The absolute ultimate in conversion therapy. The absolute ultimate in misogyny, that sex is something for males to enjoy (however they identify) and not for females: it is a social service to perform for others. And good female homosexuals will learn to do this - by which is meant, practice it, (you can find the 'how to' guides in lesbian mags these days) and 'unlearn your genital prejudices' (grit your teeth, lay back and think of Stonewall)...

ffs how sick can you get?

Why can a female's right to declare a sexuality that will never under any circumstances involve any male not be something to be out and proud about?

When people are proudly trying to reclaim all kinds of kink why is female homosexuality such an absolute anathema that they really shouldn't be allowed to hurt other people by talking about in public places? Or resisting their rebranding and 'encouragement' to be bisexual while calling it 'lesbian' ?

And anyone that cannot spot the binary, sex based disparity in entitlement and labour in all this has both hands over their eyes and is shouting 'la la la' to drown it out.

No one in all this has any problem at all in knowing which party is of which sex, and which sex gets which treatment.

Sorry, I KNOW it's the Fail and I KNOW I'm resurrecting a thread that looked like it may have mercifully died. But thought this article sums up so much of what so many PPs have been trying to say to the knuckle-headed OP. Whether or not OP is still reading (and let's face it, who cares because they clearly don't want to listen), I have found this thread depressing but informative and enlightening so for anyone else who is interested...

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11165667/JULIE-BINDLE-says-time-break-growing-list-identities-make-LGBTQQI.html

At the end of the article @loopycurtains posted above Julie says there will be a Lesbian Strength march in Leeds. I wish them well. I hope it isn't invaded by bady dressed men.