Are we a cult?

[CyclingSam]

I keep reading that sex realists, of which I am one, are a cult. Perhaps a genderist could be so kind as to explain what a cult is, and why we qualify. Sometimes one of us calls them a cult too. Who has a better case, hmmm?

So to recap. The people who think publishing pictures of men's bodies is misogyny and young women being exploited to produce soft porn are liberated, definitely aren't the ones in a cult. Is that correct?

It all just feels so old.

"She's no better than she ought to be and she was enjoying herself".

"How dare you suggest such a thing of a respectable man!".

No doubt this is similar to the argument that lap dancing empowers women. Or that having a ‘safe word’ to stop being choked during sex is empowering. This bullshit has infiltrated our daughter’s thinking via fucking social media and popular culture and it fills me with equal parts rage and despair to see it perpetuated by women. God. What have we come to.

Some years ago I was watching a program on sex,
They had several dominatrices on.
None of them have PIV sex with the men.
The one that stayed in my mined is the one that had the men cleaning house for her. What she enjoyed, other than dominating the men, was that they paid for her to have a clean house.

I post this because it shows one of the many differences in sex between men and women.

I might revist my copy of Female Chauvinist Pigs.

You know LOTS of women aren’t gender critical, right?

Another opportunity to post the YouGov stats that show a majority of women object to TIMs in women's spaces and sports, and a plurality of women object to TIFs in male spaces and sports.
That does still leave lots of women who either haven't thought about it (thanks, #nodebate) or who are in favour of handing over those spaces and sports to men. However, every time that YouGov carry out this polling, those numbers decrease.

https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/51545-where-does-the-british-public-stand-on-transgender-rights-in-202425

And just because a woman has had enough life experience to come to that realisation, it does NOT make them a prude, ffs. Like seriously, can you not recognise how offensive and damaging this kind of shit is to some women... Especially women who've escaped the sex trade.

This is so important.

Those of us who actually have been young women and lived that experience understand how manipulative men can be around our sexuality.

We don't see it when we are in it - we think we are being dealt with by our make peers honestly and openly as equal sexual beings, and that society is just about to change for the better.

It's only with age and perspective we see how the double standards and manipulation play out.

That's what I'm reading, yes.

It's all there is the linguistic gymnastics to justify what otherwise is unjustifiable.

When you are asked not to see something you can see right before your eyes it is always problematic.

It's also why we are seeing problems in our society when politicians minimise or try to discredit social issues and problems and don't deal with them head on. Unless this is done, it merely leaves a gap where social injustice can be exploited and trust in authority is lost with various groups who then look for alternative sources of authority (often nefarious).

This isn't a difficult concept to understand. It is a difficult concept for major political parties to admit to engaging with, because if they do they have to acknowledge their own failures and mistakes. It's just easier to try and maintain the lie and suppress concerns over problems.

When politicians started to say that you could change sex and that some women have a penis, they really didn't understand what they were doing and how damaging it is. Not just to women but to their creditably on ALL issues and ALL problems because it exposed how far they were prepared to go along with something that obviously isn't true. That's huge. That undermines every single word on every single subject that they've said. It says something huge about their willingness to lie for personal interest and to serve the party before the people.

Gay porn is illuminating in this respect. When the same dynamics we see in straight porn are performed by men, the power, agency and (de)humanised body differences between the roles typically assigned to the different sexes in straight porn become glaring and obvious. Once both players are men the "normal" sexed expectations drop away and we see it.

We are just so inured to these being "normal" expressions of female sexuality (they are not, they are social constructs we are brought up inside) that we don't notice it.

That is a screen shot from a tv programme that has been all over the internet. And too fucking right I’m defending anyone highlighting the behaviour of the likes of Fred. Why do you think we don’t want him in our single sex spaces?

And have you seen the photos that Fred posts online? Those actually are obscene.

People defending him are the ones tying themselves in knots, not me.

I find that question rather frustrating, because there is no way to judge somebody else's gender.

The only practical options are mixed sex, unisex or single sex, so the relevant question is which facilities should be single sex.

However, I think that the main thing that survey shows is that as people become more aware of the issues they appear to become more 'gender critical'.

However 'gender critical' just means understanding that humans cannot change sex and sex has consequences, so that's not really surprising.

It's one of the rules of misogyny isn't it? The problem with a woman calling out bad male behaviour is with the woman's behaviour in exposing it not with the man's in actually doing it.

Now now individual humans all with your own opinions making your own individual points seperately...stop brigading.

It’s always about a power play.

Men’s power over women and girls plays out in a multitude of ways. Sometimes it’s coercion or manipulation, but increasingly power has/is being played out via subjectification. Telling younger, more vulnerable, less confident girls that getting their tits out for the lads is empowerment. Convincing women that legalising the sale and purchase of sex from trafficked women is empowerment. Telling women that dancing mostly naked in men’s laps for £10 notes being tucked into their thongs is empowerment. And recruiting young women into believing that allowing men who declare they’re women into female spaces because that’s how they feel, is empowerment.

Thank bloody god for the likes of Maya Forstater and Prof Stock and Helen Joyce and JKR. All pointing out that no, this is not what female empowerment looks like. With JKR putting her wealth behind supporting women.

And if JKR gets a bit more blunt or a bit more acerbic or doesn’t make the perfect tweet every time, there’s a world of people ready to jump on her including from the so-called ‘feminists’ who scold on these threads. They conveniently ignore how it’s girls and young women who have lost power and their autonomy in this allegedly empowered world as well as apparently ignore how the TRAs are increasing in their intimidation, vitriol and threats ranging from rape to decapitation.

I always wonder when I read women like @Stonehenger espousing such views, whether they actually realise they are arguing for women losing rights? I wonder has she or other women like her ever actually asked themselves what is the logical conclusion of demanding less sex-based rights for women. I think about other women they must have in their lives, future granddaughters, mothers, daughters and wonder if they truly think about what world they are trying to create for women.

I don't understand how they can hold men's 'feelings' in such high regard that they will happily turn the world upside down and sacrifice women's sex-based rights, but can complete ignore and dismiss women's feelings of being threatened, uncomfortable and scared at being expected to allow men into women's spaces. The cognitive dissonance it must take to think this way!

And then you have the weather vanes. Who go along with the shit, don't really acknowledge the extent to which they enabled the problem and then madly reverse ferret without properly addressing the extent of the damage that they personally helped cause. Because they know which way the wind is blowing and are still acting in self interest rather than because they have integrity.

Wes Streeting is the obvious example here. No one who has been around here since Lily Madigan trusts him. And he hasn't really properly addressed what role he personally had in that shower of shit. That matters. Because it allows others to do the same even now.

The elephant in the room is what happened subsequently, how it drove several good women out of politics, the fall out with those around Madigan and the subsequent drama. The waves and ripples lasted for years. And no one really remembers who Madigan was and why it matters because it's all about JKR and how evil she is and how everyone thinks she's extremist and that she brainwashed everyone on MN.

Sandie Peggie would not have been put through what she has if due diligence had been done by the likes of Streeting from the word go. Women saw the impact of Streetings shaming and bullying and little private groups targeting dissenters. It silenced the. He was firmly actively enabling that shite in the very heart of the Labour party.

Details matter. Understanding timelines matter. Reality matters. Because they expose the lies.

It's a public event that Wallace was aware was being filmed.

This has already been explained.

There are many pictures of all the people who spoke at the event on-line.

If you think that it is indecent for a man to wear fishnets and a miniskirt you really need to take that up with Wallace.

I agree.

And isn't it interesting that Fred's behaviour isn't described as "indecent", but when women sharing the evidence which shows his behaviour is described as "sharing indecent online photos"?

Again TRAs seem to be saying that men can behave however they like, and it's the women pointing out the harms done to females directly or as a result of that behaviour which is the real problem that needs addressing.

And it's ALL the rights.

I think some women genuinely don't care about sharing space with men and lack the empathy to understand why some women need single sex spaces, so think that gender critical women are just a bunch of prudes.

But if women aren't defined in law there is no concept of sex discrimination, no comparator to analyse discrimination, and any right that men don't need can just fall by the wayside.

Indeed. Most people who consent to go on telly know that people will be looking at them.

People who consent to go on telly wearing a skirt - more a pelmet than a skirt - and fishnet tights/stockings [I didn't look closely enough😬] know that people will be looking at them wearing a miniskirt and fishnet tights/stockings.

Knowing that people will be looking at you is a television thing, SeaAndSangria.

You can also see a stark contrast between women and Fred when you see women on TV who realise they have worn a skirt that is 'too short'. There is a lot of pulling down, positioning of knees, angling away from cameras that goes on. I say this as a tall woman who did not realise how much a dress would 'ride up' until after sitting down as part of an onstage panel.

I was once called dreadful by one of our scolders for mentioning Isla Bryson's cock bulge. I will take that as a badge of honour if JKR gets called terrible for sharing a photo of a pissed up bloke who chose to manspread on camera.

Can anyone else hear their Nan saying loudly "why is there a drunken man dressed like Bet Lynch on the television?".

@Shedmistress Ha ha! We're clearly need some practice at the old brigading tactics, don't we? Only two of us had a wee jinx moment there. And bugger! We forgot to go to a TRA forum to spout our coordinated "cultish"-ly similar opinions! Ach it was a poor show for sure!😆

As always FlirtsWithRhinos said it way better than me! Yes, exactly! It is one of the rules of misogyny!

One of the problems with informed consent is you have to be informed.

There was a study into improving rates bowel cancer screening uptake. What they found when people have been given greater information about the possible side effects and treatments, quality of life and whether it actually prolongs life significantly enough to be worthwhile, consent levels dropped. The data showed that unfortunately whilst patients didn't die of bowel cancer their life expectancy didn't improve and they just died of something else because their body had pretty much just gone kaput all at the same time. (Source Margaret McCartney's patient paradox).

This causes something of an ethical dilemma for authority who want to increase uptake of the screening. Greater informed consent reduced uptake.

And of course withholding such information can lead to loss of trust elsewhere.

We know that measures to increase trans access were DELIBERATELY rushed through and rushed through quietly. They did not want public scrutiny. They wanted to actively bypass public consent checks and balances.

They didn't want women to have the opportunity express their consent or withdraw consent.

And now people are more aware of what the proposals mean in practice - the bearded wanker in your workplace watching you undress in the female changing room or accusing you of transphobia when you refuse to change whilst he's still there - suddenly the penny starts to drop.

This is about clearly conveying information and being transparent with implications and discussion of possible unintended consequences.

Just saying we should be nice, doesn't cut it. It's a lack of ability to engage with a subject in its entirety and to deal with inconvenient problems.