I think there are multiple items involved in this discussion.
1. Is it natural that someone would have a strong reaction to finding out that the person that they had slept with was of different gender than they had been led to believe.
2. Pacifism.
I'm focussing on 1 for right now. If this separation is not accurate, then please let me know.
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Originally Posted by Gilda
When your gender identity matches your physical sex, your genitals are often a fundamental part of your sexual identity. When your physical sex is at odds with your gender identity, as with a MTF transsexual, the genitals are, to use your word, superfluous to their sexual identity.
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Then why get rid of them?
For now, I'm going to skip the issue of whether the nature of the sexual interactions was heterosexual or homosexual or something in between, by virtue of the fact that all parties
believed them to be for a moment, because I do not understand what I consider to be a more fundamental aspect, which I will try to get to below.
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I'm not sure exactly what you mean by sexual gender orientation or how my orientation is relevant.
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Only in that you
do have one. Other than that, the details are irrelevant. However, I fail to understand how on one hand, you can say that it is irrelevant if this person had male genitals, and on the other hand draw a distinction between sexual attraction to men and women. It seems to me that apparently gender is something that matters to you - and not just you, but me and I'm guessing a pretty fair amount of people.
Thus, I am left to the conclusion that you would hold the position, in this situation, that gender is primarily a question of social roles and psychological make up. I have to then ask you if you would be interested in dating effeminate males, or if your SO's more dominant qualities have any gender-bending qualities. I am not trying to be overly personal, and I hope I don't seem rude. I genuinely find this to be a very interesting discussion - I just happen to know some things about your situation from other posts. I seem to perceive a conflict or inconsistency in your position, and I would think it might be attributable to the understandably strong emotions you must have in this case - but I am fully open to the idea that I don't fully understand your position.
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Perhaps it would be better to amend my previous statement from, "she caused them no harm" (which I still believe) to "Gwen had caused them no physical harm and was no threat to them physically, so they were in no way justified in any degree of violence towards her." There was no defense here, nothing to mitigate physical violence.
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I think we can basically agree here. I'm only saying that I would be able to understand a slap or a shove in the heat of the moment. As
Martian stated, that's clearly not the case here, and these guys were morally bankrupt in their actions. I do not condone these actions in any way. I am more interested in the discussion concerning whether or not a
much more muted reaction akin to the one in this case, is natural and understandable. If you are an absolute pacifist, then I don't expect that any form of violence will ever be condoned, but I think that is a separate topic.
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And it is also with a MTF transsexual, whose core gender identity is female. Gwen's orientation was pretty clearly to males, which, given that she saw herself as female, would make her heterosexual. If she is anything like the MTF transsexuals I know, she likely found her male genitals as abhorrent as her attackers did.
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I think this is related to the question above concerning where does gender reside. I know this may seem callous, but just because she
wanted to be female, it doesn't make it
so. I think that's just a fact - you can't ignore biology. However, that doesn't mean that she was a bad person, or disgusting, or any of that sort of thing because of what she was. A MTF transexual.
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What I can't understand is how her genitals are fundamental to their sexual orientation, esepeciall given that her genitals were never a part of any of those interactions.
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I don't necessarily think that they were. Which is exactly why I would expect them to have a fairly strong reaction to it. They had unknowingly (and that can be debated...seems like they had been wondering about her gender for a while...but regardless, for the discussion we've been having I'll let that pass) participated in behavior that violated a part of their core sexual identity. It'd be something like if somone crept in bed with you one night, and you thought it was your (general you, not "you") SO, and you were intimate with them, you would most likely naturally feel violated. Now throw on top of that if they were of the opposite gender than your SO. I think you would feel doubly violated (or many people would) because now you've
de facto had sex with someone outside your gender preference, regardless of who you thought they were at the time. Doesn't change your orientation; neither does it change what you actually did.
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Originally Posted by martinguerre
I usually try to get to know the people i may be sexually intimate with. I often talk with them, trade stories, and ask them about their lives. It's often called dating.
When you seek out random sexual encounters...it's just that. Random.
I'm not saying it's a great practice to withhold that kind of information. but i think it's equally bad not to find out.
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Well, I don't think that whether or not there was actual dating or just casual sexual interaction is really the point...I think that's a whole different discussion. Sure, none of what happened sounds like the best idea...and everyone in this thing was asking to be in a clusterfuck situation, start to finish. But it's not
completely random if you're only targeting half the population based on gender. As I said, there's no way to condone what these bastards did, and I'm not trying to defend them in any way. I'm simply curious about the position that seems to be emerging that the biological facts of this person's gender has no relation to actual gender, or how sexual interactions with her would be perceived.