language and generations

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Does anyone find it interesting that we use the same word for biological sex and the sexual act? I wonder whether those who try and prevent themselves going through puberty, or try to carve out the male/female parts of themselves, are displaying difficulties with sexuality psychologically -- they either don't want their children to develop a sexuality or have some issue with male and female coexisting within themselves.

It also strikes me that when you have a cabal of (mostly) older generation women insisting on the (accurate) word 'sex', it links up with the societal pressures on women to be 'nice'. To accommodate others within their spaces, to put others first, and never insist on being seen as sexed beings the way that men are -- both in terms of insisting on the reality of their biological sex and embracing their own sexuality.

Those of us who have been around the block know what men are like and the reality of the sexed body on their behaviour -- they want sex, they will do almost anything to get sex, they will trample boundaries to get it, and a lot of them are really peverted weirdos. No one likes hearing this, the men do not want us to know this or discuss it out loud, and it's a hard thing for young women to come to terms with, that (in my view) there is not a lot of possibility of men changing anytime soon.

The philosophers have discovered a way to discourse to an imagined better future -- if there is no such thing as gender then a future without misogyny is possible. But you can't think your way out of a body. Generations of women have had to swallow the bitter pill that misogyny and sexual violence is just a fact of life and this new gender discourse is making it harder for us to tell our daughters how to protect themselves from anyone with a penis.

What you said reminds me of Victoria Smith's book, Hags, which is about how men discredit and mock older women because they don't want them telling younger women what men are really like. A kind of patriarchal tool to keep on top and keep women down.

@Lovageandgeraniums I think it works, too, because it's a really bitter pill to swallow to understand that you can't really trust any man. You want to, as a young woman, you don't want to believe your lovely boyfriend or whoever has the capacity to be awful, but like all men he really does

It also strikes me that when you have a cabal of (mostly) older generation women insisting on the (accurate) word 'sex', it links up with the societal pressures on women to be 'nice'.

I think you have got it back to front.

The reality is that up until the rise of queer gender everyone used the word sex.

It is only recenlty that people have concocted the fiction that "nice" women use the word gender. ie part of the false narrative that sex and gender are the same things, whereas gender is the social construct of conformity.

The difference is that in the past people "had sex", so everyone knew the difference between being a sex and having sexual intercourse with someone.

As to the rejection of one's sexed body around the time of puberty, which for many isn't necessarily rejecting their sexed body, but the recognition that society will impose gender norms on them.

The majority of the threads on FWR are about this.

If you were intending to be insulting by using the word "cabal" as most women who believe in sexed based rights are only too happy to be thought of as witches will welcome this, but not the ageism.

I’m not sure, but I think one of the drifts in language is that in the past ‘sex’ was used more for male/female but a different term - be it coy euphemism or ‘four letter word’ - was more often used for the sexual act.

Going back thirty years, i worked with medical text where sex and gender were used interchangeably and both just meant sex.

I acknowledged gender was used differently in women studies but unless someone studied it or had an interest in reading feminist books, i dont think they'd know gender could have a different meaning to sex.

@IwantToRetire not meant to be insulting at all. Quite happy to be in the cabal!

I suppose I mean that when you have a bunch of older women talking about sex, even when they are referring to biological sex rather than the sexual act, it will remind people of fucking and what kind of people are allowed to be sexual beings in our society. It’s not “nice” and it’s jarring for a bunch of mothers and grandmothers to be talking about it openly.

Just one thing to say : I'm 21 so probably not considered to have been "round the block" (?) but I already KNOW that (most) men are perverted creeps who think I owe them sex!

All the more reason to do it!
well seriously if they’re going to be ageist as well as sexist, and weirdly ‘prudish’ then really that’s a them problem not an us problem.

Not sure what the point of your post is apart from dismissing a lot of men as perverted weirdos

MishyJDI treated us to a huge long quote from a biology teacher explaining that biology is complicated. But it all boils down to nothing relevant.

Yes a small number of people have DSDs. But that includes very few trans-identifying people. They, like the huge majority of the population, are the sex they were observed to be at birth.

And yes, people have the right to tell us “who they are”. But if they’re lying, we have the right to say we don’t believe them.

I was looking for something in my trusty old Chambers Dictionary (1983) the other day and out of curiosity checked how it defined 'gender'. As expected, a function of grammar, and a jocular term for sex. The present use hadn't leached out of sociology (Chambers was always quick to pick up new technical language).

By that stage 'sex' for the sex act was in general colloquial use - Larkin's Sexual intercourse began in 1963 and Oliver J Flanagan's There was no sex in Ireland before television (1962) give a benchmark for when that started. Before that the euphemisms were varied and coded (I remember as a very small child being baffled as to why the grow-ups thought a certain TV presenter getting into bed with her boss was worthy of hushed tones).

Women might be referred to as 'the fair sex' or even simply, between men, as 'the sex' with no suggestion that they women referred to were actually 'doing it'.

Euphemisms notwithstanding, language was more exact, and it was possible, when people wanted to do it, to collect statistics on unequal distribution of resources and outcomes, and for women to protest situations where these were unfavourable and to work to make them more fair. AKA be feminists.

Something that isn't possible once slippery meaningless 'gender' is used. Anyone can be any gender.

That is why this old hag, who prefers humans to be nice whether they are male or female, and who has been a feminist since the 1970s (and prepared to be nasty if necessary), insists on calling sex sex.

We knew 'sex' referred to the biology. We knew it got used for the act as well. As were many many other words. Most of us believed people could present any way they wanted. We could not have imagined the prescriptive bullying rigid conformity the genderist generation has attempted to impose.

The English language is known for having a high level of redundancy due to the existence of many synonyms and near-synonyms derived independently from different roots. Sex (via Middle English from the Latin sexus) and gender (via Middle English and Old French from the Latin genus) are an example.

There could be a thesis in whether this is the reason why gender ideology in its current form is so entrenched in Anglophone countries......

I think it is basically what has allowed the word "gender" to become so ubiquitous.

People started using "gender" as a polite synonym for "sex" because to them the word "sex" means "shagging".

Nobody wants to invite their grandmother to a "sex reveal party", do they?

But this is what has allowed "male gender" and "female gender" to become a thing, and consequently allowed transgender males to claim to be women because they also have a "female gender".

Perhaps we'd have been more resistant to this ideology if we had separate words for "biological sex" and "shagging".

People generally don’t find any confusion when they’re talking about animals - sex is dog or bitch, bull or cow etc and they ‘mate’ or ‘breed’, rather than us talking about them ‘having sex’. Perhaps in part because in most animals sex is primarily reproductive rather than social/fun - bonobos being an exception.
The societal move for it being more obvious and acceptable that human sexual activity is now not primarily for reproduction has been a very good thing in general for women and same-sex attracted people. But it’s almost certainly had the unfortunate consequence of some people pretending to be confused about what sex is, why it exists!

The conflation of 'gender' with 'sex' is in large part down to the polite senstitivities of Americans; in the same way Americans recoil at the use of the word 'toilet' for a toilet. Preferring 'restroom' or 'bathroom'.

It is useful for men to have the two conflated as it blurs their intentions. Using gender as a replacement for sex when describing biology means they can pretend to be women, giving them access to women’s spaces and therefore women’s bodies.

And while we are discussing this, and fighting trans ideology, they are getting on with eroding our rights. I would much rather be campaigning for more refuges, better support for those suffering domestic abuse and awareness about the tactics used by men to dominate, manipulate and control women.

Its odd, though because transsexual fell out of use (quite deliberately) and replaced by transgender, presumably for the same reason. And lots of TRA do claim that transition means sex change. They become infertile women, and will be fertile once womb implants become successful. Sex change surgery and drugs aim to give men vaginas and breast to mimic womens reproductive role.

But some are now claim that sex itself is so complicated and undefined that sex is irrelevant and gender more useful and reliable. So definitely see sex and gender as different. Female/male is sex, woman/man is gender.

I feel like we are in the middle of a shift where this confusion isnt really being addressed.

I've got no problem with sex meaning both sexual intercourse and male/female human sexes. The two are intrinsically linked.

I do put under "other" if asked on forms for gender that I'm not sure whether they mean 'biological sex' or 'gender identity'.

It's my small rebellion. Yes I'm very proud of myself 😜

The idea that 'gender' is synonymous with 'sex' and is something a human being can have is very new. If you said it to someone 40 years ago they'd have thought you were wrong, and probably with an unhealthy hangup about the word 'sex'. It simply was not a thing in normal speech.