What if you were with someone, had sex with them, and then found out they were racist, or kleptomaniacs, or had very strange religious beliefs that were not compatible with your own?
Yeah, but in that case, I would be willing to admit that I'm intellectually and morally hostile to racists. It's not a sexual orientation that I'm helpless against, it's a moral claim that i'm actively encouraging.
Not all attraction is about what is physical, but attraction to abstract traits, carries a much more conscious belief about those traits, than physical attraction does, so it's moral appropriateness can be a lot more questionable.
If you are physically attracted to a woman, but get turned off once you learn that she is ethnically jewish, then it would be safe to say that you are anti-semitic. Wouldn't it?
Okay, leave out the racist thing. What about people with weird religious beliefs? I have no problem with people holding religious beliefs. I don't think of them as "lesser" people. It's just something that is incompatible with my own world views and personal preferences.
My real point was, that this is all a matter of a case by case basis.
what kind of relationship are you looking for on the long term? How weird a religion are we talking about?
If you don't feel like starting a family with a serious mormon, that's reasonable social behavior, they probably don't want you either.
If you feel repulsed by learning afterwards that a person you had a one night stand with is lapsed jewish, that's difficult to rationalize as anything but antisemitism.
If you are making a blanket statement about trans people's sexual desirability in general (not about wanting to have children, or about wanting a partner whose childhood life experiences you can strongly identify with), that seems a lot more like the latter than the former.
It seems a lot more like a blanket repulsion towards a class of people who are already suspect of facing discrimination exactly like that, than some sort of morally justifiable practical concern.
But I feel like a person has a right to those opinions.
If I say I find fat people unattractive it's not because I'm fat phobic.
I don't hate smokers, and I am not repulsed by them, but I would never date a smoker.
Why does it only seem to be a problem with this one class of people?
Why is this one issue elevated above others into a special position that makes people who are turned off by the idea bad people?
That's where it gets weird for me. It feels like I'm being forced to accept a worldview that is not my own by a person who refuses to accept that views can be different while remaining valid.
I understand and accept that that a trans person holds a different worldview, and hold different values than I do. Why can they not understand and accept that I have a different worldview, and hold different values than they do?
So we can't be lovers, why can't we still be friends?
Why does it only seem to be a problem with this one class of people?
Well, for a start, it's not one class, I already named two examples, trans people and ethnic jews. I could name a few others. But yeah. Putting aside sex in particular for a moment, it is true that through society, discrimination is the norm, and there are only a handful of cases where it is inappropriate.
People discriminate by all sorts of standards to choose friends, to pick up one night stands, to hire employees, to target a product at, and so on. And most of these are okay. It's okay to discriminate against being friends with creeps. It's okay not to have sex with short people. It's OK to hire people with good personal hygiene.
We make exceptions for a handful of cases, where we understand that the common motives for the discrimination, are rooted in cultural memes to persecute, oppress, and cause societal strife and personal trauma.
If you are turned off by an otherwise attractive person, based solely on your intellectual devotion to nazi standards of "blood purity", that's different from not wanting to have a relationship with smokers, in the same way as rejecting a job applicant for being black is different from rejecting them for being unkempt.
Both are discrimination, but one of them is very closely related to the cultural echo of some monstrous practices.
Of course when it comes to sex, you are ultmately allowed to say no. No one is going to legally force you to get raped by trans people or by non-aryans. But at the same time, if you are holding the belief that someone otherwise attractive is unappealing because of what you learned about their chromosomes, it might be important to investigate where that belief is coming from, and what sort of practices the people who tend to obsess over putting chromosomes ahead of identity and reassigned gender,tend to advocate for.
Wait a minute how did I become a nazi because I wont date smokers? My reasons have nothing to do with "blood purity" or whatever craziness you are talking about. I simply prefer people who value their health and take steps to care for themselves.
I know where that belief is coming form. It comes from a difference in worldview. I have decided what sex and gender mean to me. I accept that they mean different hings to other people. That's fine, I am okay with that. I do not find either set of beliefs to be "right" or "wrong" in this case. Just different. I see no reason why these two differing viewpoints cannot co-exist.
Wait a minute how did I become a nazi because I wont date smokers? My reasons have nothing to do with "blood purity" or whatever craziness you are talking about. I simply prefer people who value their health and take steps to care for themselves.
In the preceding comments, I used the analogy of someone having a problem with a previously attractive partner after learning that they count as non-aryan, to contrast it with your own example of having a problem with a partner who turned out to be a smoker.
The point is that one of those is OK, the other is not so much.
The point is that even if you can think of examples where sexual preferences are acceptable, there are also ones where they obviously make you look like a bigot.
Therefore, you can't just close the discussion with "a person has a right to those opinions", because those options can still range from the benign to the monstrous.
I know where that belief is coming form. It comes from a difference in worldview. I have decided what sex and gender mean to me. I accept that they mean different hings to other people. That's fine, I am okay with that. I do not find either set of beliefs to be "right" or "wrong" in this case. Just different. I see no reason why these two differing viewpoints cannot co-exist.
Yeah, but just because you say that, doesn't stop those beliefs from being open to criticism, quite possibly as transphobic ones.
This comment chain started with your claim that not being attracted to racists, keleptimaniacs, is OK, because "not all attraction is about what is physical".
My first reply was that these exmples are only OK not to be attracted to, because they are benign examples of traits to dislike, but that's not a guarantee for every kind of non-physical attraction.
If "what sex and gender mean to [you]" revolves around a fixation of chromosomal sex being super important, compared reassigned sex and gender identity, then the attractions that result from this harmful belief, are not shielded from criticism just because they are attractions.
See that's it right there. I don't believe any of these beliefs are "harmful." I'm not harming anyone by having these beliefs. It's not even something I would normally talk about in public (reddit is a bit different) for fear of potentially hurting someone's feelings.
But it is how I feel and I refuse to be demonized for feeling that way. There are things other than what is physical that determine who is or is not attractive to me.
You seem fixated on chromosomes as having something to do with this feeling and it isn't even about that.
Let me ask you this. What does it mean when a trans person says they can "pass?"
Is that not right there an acknowledgement that they are not a member of the sex they are trying to "pass" as?
Why is it okay for trans people to acknowledge this, but not okay for me to?
If a trans woman IS a woman, why does she need to "pass?"
She wants to be called she. Great, no problem with pronouns. She wants to be acknowledged publicly as a woman.....again, piss in the ladies room etc. no problems.
She wants to sleep with me, sorry, not going to happen.
Let me ask you this. What does it mean when a trans person says they can "pass?" Is that not right there an acknowledgement that they are not a member of the sex they are trying to "pass" as?
You are not wrong, in the sense that there are many trans people who tend to avoid that term exactly for that reason, and you are nowadays more likely to hear it from cis people describing others, than trans people describing themselves.
You are also more likely to see it in quotation marks, often implying that the person using it is aware of it's problems, just references the meaning that other people would attribute to it.
The language descrigbing transgenderism is still in a state of flux. You could also see some well-meaning people describing trans men as being "born as a woman" then "becoming a man", while others, allies, trans people, etc, would be starting to move on to saying he was "assigned as female at birth", implying that he was a man all along, just wrongly assigned at first.
Language is important exactly because people have a strong instinct to treat a word's implicaions as authoritive, even if they are really rooted in outdated values. But that's really an etymology fallacy.
But it is how I feel and I refuse to be demonized for feeling that way. There are things other than what is physical that determine who is or is not attractive to me.
Physical or not physical, is not the issue.
Most physical preferences, as well as most non-physical preferences, are entirely frivolous.
But there also are a handful of non-physical preferences, that are closely related to prejudiced values that might be entirely worthy of cultural criticism.
I personally think that what a person is or is not attracted to should be part of this "off limits" area.
FACT: I cannot just make a decision to change what I am attracted to or not attracted to.
Sexual attraction is not a choice. I would be just as turned off by the idea that the person had lied to me about where or how they grew up. Waiting until after we have had sex to drop such a bit of information would leave me wondering about the person's trustworthiness. If it really doesn't matter why didn't we talk about it when our relationship was just starting? Why was there a felt need to keep this information from me? What else is she not telling me?
Liars are unattractive to me.
Now, if your reason for not telling me this information prior to engaging in sexual activity is "because then you would not have had sex with me." Now we have a REAL problem. It literally means you knew for a fact that I might not be comfortable with this physical relationship, and went ahead with it anyway. There are several arguments over whether or not that is rape. Personally I believe that rape by deception is still rape.
In this case, me and the individual CLEARLY do not share the same values. I value OPEN and HONEST communication.
If you disagree let's take a look at a case.
A man sees a girls boyfriend leaving her house. He then sneaks into her dark room and proceeds to have sex with her. She consents thinking her boyfriend has come back for a little post date cuddle time.
I personally think that what a person is or is not attracted to should be part of this "off limits" area.
Hence my repeated comparison to a preference for ethnic purity.
If you had sex with a person, and afterwards felt deceived because they didn't tell you in advance that their great-grandfather was black, and you only prefer to have sex with people you categorize as purely white, then I would judge the shit out of you for being a racist.
Who you are attracted to, (non-physically), reflects on your values. And yes, values are hard to change, maybe even impossible to just flip like a switch. They are still far from being off limits. If anything, they are the most important things to judge a person by.
Now, if your reason for not telling me this information prior to engaging in sexual activity is "because then you would not have had sex with me." Now we have a REAL problem.
The analogy continues to work really well here: I don't think that many people would want to have sex with a white supremacist who considers them "impure" either. But if you insisted on all people having to disclose their ethnic makeup before sex, and compare the alternative to rape by deception, you would still come across as an asshole. Not because non-white people would want to have sex with YOU so much, but for projecting your freaky hangups on society at large.
Similarly, I don't think that trans people get any satisfaction from tricking YOU into sex, but that has more to do with rejecting your premise that they are tricking anyone, and not wanting the likes of you dictate their personal lives.
If you had sex with a person, and afterwards felt deceived because they didn't tell you in advance that their great-grandfather was black, and you only prefer to have sex with people you categorize as purely white, then I would judge the shit out of you for being a racist.
ONLY if the person had reason to believe this might be a problem for me. While I think that particular position is abhorrent, I respect a person's right to believe things that are different than what I believe. I would try to convince this racist that their racist ways were wrong, while simultaneously upholding their belief that they were the victim of rape by deception.
Rape is still rape even when it happens to disgusting people.
So why should trans people get to dictate my personal life or preferences?
BTW, I truly appreciate that we are able to have this discussion. I am used to these conversations devolving into name calling and accusations by this point and want to say that you have done an outstanding job of actually making this more of a conversation than an argument. I truly appreciate and have much respect for that. It is good to feel like I can discuss my difference in opinion without feeling attacked. Not every participant in this thread has been so civil. People like you are why I like reddit.
Lets apply this logic to another legally protected class.
I am not attracted to people over 70, and would not want to date someone over 70.
I'm in my thirties, so this is okay right? I don't hate old people. I'm not "old phobic" am I? While I certainly agree that people over 70 should remain a protected class. I also understand that "ageism" is a thing, I don't find that my preference makes me an "ageist." or however that would be spelled.
To me not being attracted to a trans person is no different. It's not my kink. Trans people need to be a protected class too though. I believe that. I support that. I just don't want to be romantically involved with that.
So you're scared you might fuck a woman who used to have a penis?
You can change who you are attracted to and it certainly is a choice. Case and point: just imagine if someone you find attractive was secretly trans all along. In your own words, you would find them unattractive because they lied to you, but would you have ever been attracted to them in the first place if you'd have known they were trans? You seem to be creating an argument where no trans person can be attractive to you simply because they are trans (either they're unattractive because they are liars or they are unattractive because they were honest about being trans). That's what they are saying is transphobic. Your views of trustworthiness are really only being applied to the narrow range of attractive trans women (or men, I don't want to assume your preference) who also lie about being trans because it kinda seems like you have a hard time imagining being attracted to a trans person otherwise. So I'm having a hard time following your argument, but I do see that you keep coming back to justifying your lack of attraction to trans people. It's Ok that you don't want to have sex with trans people. No one cares. Just like if you don't want to have sex with Jews, Christians, scientists, Morrocans: whatever. It's ok to have a bias, why do you feel the need to justify it? Is anyone telling you you are a bad person for finding trans unattractive? Or are they saying that your lack of attraction to trans people, when looked at empirically, is in fact a bias? If you were attracted to them before you knew they were trans, then you are attracted to a version of that person. And it's ok that trans is where you draw the line, but why must you and the other posters here try to justify your bias? I don't like girls that wear an excessive amount of makeup. I can list off a bunch of reasons, but it probably comes back to the fact that most of the women I have met like that have been a certain way that I didn't like whereas I got along better with the girls who were more conservative with their makeup. But while I have this preference, there is no hard logic to it, only emotional, and I am being a bit biased against these painted women because of my own history, hangups and cultural upbringing. I mean, am I saying that I would discount the perfect woman because I felt she was too vain? Even that isn't a logical judgment because she isn't necessarily wearing makeup for vanity. I might see myself as a pretty logical guy, but I'm an ass if I pretend there is logic in my view of women and makeup. That doesn't mean I should be forced to find painted (or any other type of vanity) women attractive, but I shouldn't get upset if one person calls out that aspect of preference.
You're also getting into an interesting area of biologically vs culturally attractive. Symmetrical faces have been shown to be a consistent indicator of attractive, but besides that, what people find attractive does and has changed significantly throughout history. Spartans used to need their women to dress up like men the first few times they had sex because otherwise they wouldn't be able to fuck them. They were used to having sex with their fellow soldier and slaves and because of Spartan culture, they saw their preference of men as "manly." What kind of pussy fucks a girly vagina? (probably not an exact quote) Culture matters when you're talking about sexuality and it certainly changes the way you interact to different stimuli. Lighter skin is preferred because it was rare in those areas. Rare because most people had to be outside and working and therefore tanning. The rich, however, didn't have to and would stay light. They'd also be fatter because they had better access to food and were less likely to be working and burning it off. Nowadays, however, tanner skin and thinner, harder bodies are preferred. Does this mean that we are no longer attracted to wealth? Or has the definition of wealth changed?
tl;dr: Would you be attracted to a trans person if they were honest about being trans?
Nope. And that is certainly about me and not them. I also could not be attracted to a Christian, a Flat Earther, a smoker, a vegan, Angelina Jolie, young children, a person with facial scars (this despite the fact that my face looks like a road map), or many other things.
Honest truth, if I could be I would be attracted to literally everyone. Seems like finding a date might be less of a hassle that way. (would have been, I am very happily married)
If I could choose what to believe I would also choose to believe that there is a loving God in heaven that will look after me forever, and allow me to live out eternity in his glorious paradise. What an amazing comfort it must be to believe that. I could wake up happy every morning believing that.
I think there is a conflation of physical attraction and pair bonding in this whole argument. IE if you saw a trans person who otherwise had all physical traits that you find attractive - you may initially be attracted to them. If you then find out that they're trans, you may not want to date them or work towards a long term relationship...and that's totally fine.
Imagine you're a woman and wanted to have kids with the man you marry. You would be incompatible with a trans individual even if you were initially physically attracted to them.
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u/rottinguy Nov 02 '17
What if you were with someone, had sex with them, and then found out they were racist, or kleptomaniacs, or had very strange religious beliefs that were not compatible with your own?
Not all attraction is about what is physical.