Sexuality Thread

[The fish]

As you've probably worked out, I disagree.

 

I hate to get into semantics, but, well, it is a semantic argument...

 

From Merriam-Webster:

Sex: Either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures.

 

Gender: The behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex.

[MoogleViper]

I hate to get into semantics, but, well, it is a semantic argument...

 

Yes but that's not the debate we're having.

 

Gender: The behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex.

 

Typically associated with one sex. That doesn't mean that a woman can't be like a man. (vice versa)

[Paj!]

I'm completely lost as to what Moogle's point/argument is. I've reread it several times but I stil have no idea. Are you saying that someone is either male or female and nothing else or the opposite?

[MoogleViper]

I'm completely lost as to what Moogle's point/argument is. I've reread it several times but I stil have no idea. Are you saying that someone is either male or female and nothing else or the opposite?

 

I'm saying that male a female are just what your body is, and your mind/personality doesn't have a gender.

[Paj!]

Oh right, okay.

[Daft]

Semantics is half the battle.

 

I'm saying that male a female are just what your body is, and your mind/personality doesn't have a gender.

 

So what does that mean for transgender people?

[Sheikah]

But the way I see it is, your gender is your body, that's it. That doesn't dictate how you are, how you think. Sure it's had a large influence on you, of course it has. But so have many other thinks, such as the fact that I'm from Derbyshire and you're from Edinburgh. But that doesn't mean that I can't be like people from Edinburgh, or that I have to act a certain way. I just happened to have been born in Derbyshire, and experienced a Derbyshire life, just like I've been born male, and experienced a male life. You wouldn't say that I'm and Edinburgh person born in a Derbyshire person's body.

 

In fact maybe race is a better example. There's stereotypes of black/white people, but people don't have to act like that. And these little chavvy "gangstas" that you see you wouldn't say they were a black person born inside a white persons body. Or vice versa.

Yeah. Some men may think they are really women because they act/feel more like women, but this is just going by stereotypes of what we expect women to act/feel like. Thus, there is no real argument to 'I'm a woman in a man's body' unless you single handedly stereotype what every woman is. Someone may feel more comfortable to live their life as a woman, though.

 

On top of that there are much higher levels of testosterone circulating throughout men, as well as differences in brain structure, so everyone is in some way biased towards their gender in terms of how they act and feel, and would undoubtedly act differently were they actually the other gender.

[Daft]

Well you've just reduced to a binary again. "Some men may think they are really women". Simply put, some men don't identify themselves as men and some women don't identify themselves as women.

[Supergrunch]

Wow craziness, the use of the term gender just seems to be confusing everyone.

 

Starting with what we agree on: sex is an anatomical (and to some extent physiological) term, that's usually binary but by no means always. Hence it's probably best to say it's continuous and one-dimensional, although even that's a bit of a simplification.

 

Now this is where it gets confusing. The term gender actually originates from linguistics, where just refers to a particular category of nouns for a given language. It just so happens that many Indo-European languages, and so most of the "gendered" languages English-speakers are familiar with, have masculine and feminine genders (and sometimes neuter). This is by no means necessary - to use a commonly cited crazy example, the Aboriginal language Dyirbal has one gender for women, fire, dangerous things, non-dangerous birds, and "unique" animals like echidnas and platypuses. But returning to languages like French: over time the linguistic genders take on roles in the culture, and what are effectively stereotypes of male attributes and female attributes are formed, with the gender terms being descriptors. This is the point where the word gender gets adapted, and begins to describe cultural ideas relating to sex rather than anything to do with language. And thus the gender you consider yourself to have really is about stereotypes, as its basically defined by the way in which you identify yourself with the cultural views attached to sex. Thankfully in recent times gender has become a lot more complex than being binary, and as a mental and cultural property, it only really makes sense to view it as continuous and multi-dimensional.

 

This also shows what's wrong with the race example - while you can choose whether or not to subscribe to the cultural properties associated with your race, whether you are of that race is usually genetic rather than cultural. There are grey areas here, however, such as when races become culturally rather than physically defined, and in these cases race becomes more like gender than like sex.

[chairdriver]

You're an idiot.

 

You're rude.

 

I'm saying that who a person is (talking about mind and personality) doesn't have a gender.

 

Ironically, that is a very pro-trans idea.

 

If your psyche/spirit/mind/whatever doesn't have a gender, what's tying it to it's body? What's wrong with changing your sex if your mind is genderless?

[MoogleViper]

Ironically, that is a very pro-trans idea.

 

If your psyche/spirit/mind/whatever doesn't have a gender, what's tying it to it's body? What's wrong with changing your sex if your mind is genderless?

 

How does that idea hold for people who say that they're the wrong gender/a man/woman trapped inside a woman/man's body?

 

As for the last question I see it as along similar lines as cosmetic surgery. Also I don't think you'll properly be a man/woman. In the same way that breast implants aren't real breasts.

[chairdriver]

Well you've just reduced to a binary again.

 

This is why most people who try to argue against trans issues fail, because they are unable to think outside the binary of male/female.

 

Granted, it is a very alien concept to our society as a whole.

 

But then, so would capitalism to someone brought up in a communist society.

[MoogleViper]

This is why most people who try to argue against trans issues fail, because they are unable to think outside the binary of male/female.

 

This is why I hate arguments about trans and other things. Because when somebody disagrees with the pc concept then they are branded ignorant or some other such thing.

 

Have you ever considered the possibility that people may just disagree with you? (Not aimed specifically at you.)

[chairdriver]

This is why I hate arguments about trans and other things. Because when somebody disagrees with the pc concept then they are branded ignorant or some other such thing.

 

You are essentially being ignorant though. You're saying absolutely that gender is binary, based on what?

 

Your own gut instinct?

 

There are people who've spent their whole lives researching this issue. And people who spend their whole lives living as trans people; and have had to deal with the social stigma as a result. Do you think they do it for fun?

 

What right do you have to flippantly and off-handedly negate all the things they've ever had to do in their lives to try and make life bearable for themselves?

[Daft]

This is why I hate arguments about trans and other things. Because when somebody disagrees with the pc concept then they are branded ignorant or some other such thing.

 

Have you ever considered the possibility that people may just disagree with you? (Not aimed specifically at you.)

 

In all likelihood they are ignorant. We all are to a degree (Imagine trying to empathise with someone who considers themselves 'asexual'), some people more so than others. It's whether you choose to understand that ignorance and are willing to learn why it is there. A lot of people just don't want to accept things that aren't easy to label - amusingly this is where the term "queer" comes in very useful.

 

People just disagreeing are being intrinsically ignorant.

[MoogleViper]

You are essentially being ignorant though. You're saying absolutely that gender is binary, based on what?

 

Your own gut instinct?

 

Of course it's based upon my own feelings and experiences. So is everything. And why am I being ignorant by saying that gender is binary? I could say that they are being ignorant by saying it isn't. I wouldn't be right, but neither are you. I've listened to plenty of people trans, and I understand what they're saying (to a degree, obviously I've not experienced it first hand, but as Daft said, we are all ignorant to a degree) and I disagree with them. I'm not saying that they're wrong and I'm right, I'm saying that there is no wrong or right. But with these two posts you've basically gone and said what I said at the start.

 

Just don't you dare tell a trans person that gender is binary.

 

Why am I not allowed to think that gender is either male or female? Why are they automatically "right" and me "wrong"?

[Chris the great]

from my years studying psychology, i have the following thoughts on gender.

 

sex and gender are not the same. whilst a person may physicaly be a man, they will not necicarily conform to general masculine steriotypers. I'll sight my self as an example, as whilst certainly being a man physicaly, i do not care for sport, which is a typicaly male interest, and i simply love looking at cute pictures and videos of animals, which is a typicaly femenine interest.

 

i do view my self as male, though i can understand that some people may not feel their mind is the same sexuality as thier body.

 

its just a shame when the results are hillarious (rokhed for example)

[The Bard]

Er, am I mistaken or is Moogleviper operating under a very Cartesian assumption of the relationship between body and mind? Your body is your metaphysical "soul." Your emotions are generated through your sensory feedback. Your personality is formed through your bodies interactions with its surrounding environment.

 

Of course, we could all abandon the idea of the CNS and go back to the good old days of phrenology.

 

Also, there is no such concrete thing as "gender," really (unless you take the assumption that public consensus defines an objective fact), and what exists of it is just a system of archetypes developed through social interactions (and because people internalize behaviorisms, and morality systems, these moralities become seen as objective...and traditionalized...), to be assumed by members of the specific sex they are supposed to be a characterization of.

 

You define yourself by your sexuality:

 

"Social Identity Theory," the fact that people form identities based on membership within a group (much to do with the ego's tendancy to limit itself, but also to do with its tendancies to assimilate objects that share its traits) tells us about this. You "identify" with the parent with whom who share mutual sexual interests: if you like women, you'll take after a heterosexual male archetype (because heterosexuality is seen as the norm), regardless of whether you yourself are male or female, and vice versa.

 

 

This whole morality of customs and archetypes is just because people are incapable of undertanding another's individualism, and experience some vague horror when another person acts in a way that could/cannot be predicted. Hence the whole ostentaion of our culture: Guys like trucks and hoes, Women like shoes and...whatever...

 

Sorry about teh long post gaiz.

Edit: Uh...goddamnit Chris.

 

Yeah. Some men may think they are really women because they act/feel more like women, but this is just going by stereotypes of what we expect women to act/feel like. Thus, there is no real argument to 'I'm a woman in a man's body' unless you single handedly stereotype what every woman is. Someone may feel more comfortable to live their life as a woman, though.

 

On top of that there are much higher levels of testosterone circulating throughout men, as well as differences in brain structure, so everyone is in some way biased towards their gender in terms of how they act and feel, and would undoubtedly act differently were they actually the other gender.

 

Holy shit, you said it before me . Yeah, I don't really think its a matter of "if," you stereotype, its definitely a phenomenon that occurs in every person (although with some to a more exaggerated extent than others).

 

Why else were we so horrified when Rokhead dressed up in his frilly dresses? It was this whole thing of a gruff bearded giant, with incredible connotations of testosterone overload, juxtaposed with what we traditionally consider staples of a feminine gender role. It was strange. Unpredictable. We couldn't understand it, because we have no real understanding of the external circumstances that caused him to be the way he is. And then he just became a cunt.

 

Everything is to do with Perspectivism.

Edited January 24, 2010 by The Bard
Automerged Doublepost

[Chris the great]

words and such

 

thats well said but i do feel that its necicary to acknowlage that physiological factors do have an effect on the mind. we all know the testosterone/eastrogen relationship, and its foolish to ignore the differenence in male and female brain structure. in evolutionary psychology, its proposed that females are able to multi task as thier role in our early life was more varied then that of the hunter males. females would forrage, which is less specialied a task then hunting (apparently) so thiey had more variables to comete with whilst the mens thoughts didnt need to be much more then "well id better throw my pointy stick into that woolly mamoth now".

 

there ARE differences between male and female brains as well as bodies, but these dont always lead into gender identities.

 

one last thing i will leave you with. there is a tribe some were in the world where the women do the hunting whilst the men stay at home, cook, and use flowers in thier hair to make them selves pretty. this breaks away any idea that gender is naturaly set, or that peoples roles in life should be set by what they got between thier legs.

[The Bard]

Oh yeah, I know that, I'm not denying it at all. Those are physiological differences and traits inherent in the genetics of their respective sex. However, they don't necessarily extrapolate to the socio-ideologies that are taken as so inherent to each sex these days. Those "gender" traits are pretty fuckin mutable.

 

My point was, that your physiology has to do with the whole of your body. Not just whats in your Cranium.

[chairdriver]

ULTIMATELY this whole thing boils down to:

 

Don't be transphobic, or I'll firebomb your house.

[Wesley]

Well said, chair.

 

I enjoyed reading that though.

 

I have nothing to add to the debate though... I generally don't think about this sort of stuff.

 

Nor do I have anything to add about any other area of sex.

 

I'm just your pretty average guy, happy to be a male with a penis and two balls between my legs.

 

And I love to fuck kids.

[Raining_again]

ULTIMATELY this whole thing boils down to:

 

Don't be transphobic, or I'll firebomb your house.

 

I don't think anyone is being transphobic. We all have different ways of seeing things and we all have to accept everyone has their own opinion.

 

I never thought I'd find myself agreeing with the Bard, but that's pretty much how I feel. Regardless, I have no hate for them solely for that reason, and I don't really think anyone that has posted does.

[Iun]

ULTIMATELY this whole thing boils down to:

 

Don't be transphobic, or I'll firebomb your house.

 

You contacted the wrong mod, I work in a Transphobic Shop!

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

You contacted the wrong mod, I work in a Transphobic Shop!

Gold. Pure gold.