I'm not fond of the phrase "trans rights activists" (TRAs), because these people are not advocating for any "rights" as traditionally understood, but rather for special privileges for a set of self-selected men.
As possible alternatives I suggest "transqueer activists" (TQAs) or "trans entitlement activists" (TEAs).
The problem with the word "rights" is that most people think "rights" are a good thing. This is of course a deliberate strategy by the TQAs, who have (I'm sorry to say) proven to be masters of language manipulation.
You nailed it. Trans is not a "community" or group of people. Trans is an agenda and that agenda is to 1) sexualize and/or mutilate and sterilize children 2) obliterate all boundaries among adults to turn every single person into a potential unwilling genital stimulator 3) turn life into one giant orgy 4) make $ doing all of the above.
Kelly, tell it to the author and readers over at this other Substack (Wonkette, no less! a supposedly feminist publication), where I tried to no avail. Maybe you'll have better luck:
This mythology has successfully obliterated the real history. I heard someone on Pacifica just a few days ago claim that "transwomen of color" started the Stonewall uprising, which is demonstrably not the case. Martha Shelley, who Fred Seageant mentions, called together members of the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis to organize a march a month after Stonewall (not yet called Pride, it was before the first Pride march) and out of that came the Gay Liberation Front (title inspired by the NFL of Vietnam).
I tried to explain the premise of this spot-on post to my gay son. I asked, "If you took a 'man' home and after the clothes dropped, found out 'he' had female genitalia, would you be ok with that?" His response was effectively, "Why are you so concerned with genitalia?" Whaaat? I was really confused by that answer. When I asked again if he would care, he equivocated and said 'no'. I didn't believe him. I said, 'they're trying to erase you', he was furious and stopped talking. He cites violence against Trans people as his reasoning. I told him that had been disproven. He wouldn't budge. I've saved this post for a time he can see past identifying with a fellow victim-group and understand this does not bode well for homosexuals. Thank you very much.
I'm sorry to sound a discordant note here, but I wonder to what extent we on “our side” have not brought this disaster down on ourselves, as a reaction to our persistent denial/downplaying, throughout the 1980s and 90s, of the role of gender non-conformity in gay and lesbian identity/ies generally.
Do you remember the “Castro clones”, with their moustaches and workmen's shirts and jeans? When I first saw photos of them in the British gay press, at the very end of the 1970s, I took it to be some form of satirical street theatre. I called my friends over: “Come and look at these silly queens dressing up as men!” How wrong I was! It was quickly followed by ever more “masculine” representations of gay male sexuality/identity (usually involving leather). In the early 1980s, we nancy queens could still laugh openly at the customers of pubs in Earl's Court, London, as they stood in line in full biker gear for buses to take them home at closing time (11 p.m. in those days).
In parallel, we saw the emergence (and glorification? at least glamourization) of “lipstick lesbians”, who similarly thought fit to present themselves in accordance with a (heterosexually defined) image of “femininity”. Though very different in both presentation and intention, the evolution of the notion of “political lesbianism”, whereby commitment to other women as a class, “the sisterhood” (ideally but not necessarily avoiding sexual contact with men) was considered sufficient for you to label yourself “lesbian”, without having to get involved in any messy genital business, or even feel any sexual desire for another woman.
There had to be some reaction to that, though the “transgender” thing, which I first became aware of through middle-aged lesbian friends telling me that their ex-lovers were “becoming men” took me utterly by surprise.
I am also deeply uncomfortable with the narrative: “We have gay marriage now, so game over, we won”. Though I accept that marriage is a fait accompli in most of the West now, let it not be forgotten that it was a matter of vigorous dispute WITHIN as well as outside the gay/lesbian community/ies for at least two decades. Did we really seek “integration” into a heterosexual and patriarchal institution, or prefer to reach for our own forms of societal and legal organization? I don't think you will be in any doubt as to my own opinion, but that is just one of many arguments which I have lost.
As recently as 2002, I was one of a four-member panel speaking publicly on the subject. Three of us were against marriage, one in favour. I remember the occasion vividly, for many reasons: it was my one and only visit to the United States, among other things. But mostly I remember it as the last occasion (in my experience) on which it was still possible for us to publicly disagree, but not “demonize” each other, and still consider ourselves friends, allies and “sisters”.
I'm 69 (which is at least 80 in woman-years), so younger people, please feel free to “put me right”.
I appreciate your insights. We can definitely say Mistakes Were Made along the way.
It is so true—and no one ever talks about this—that there were lots of gay people who had no interest in gay marriage. I totally get that point of view. What’s been most surprising to me is how quickly it shifted to gay marriage not just being legal but almost compulsory! Who wanted THAT pressure?! (I’ll probably be writing more on that subject in the future!)
Is it compulsory now? Thank God I'm too old to worry about that!
For tax avoidance purposes, I would be perfectly prepared to marry my (heterosexual) stepson (legal here in Spain), but I would need to die not too long afterwards, in order to leave him free.
Here in Europe, we tend to regard it in that "civil contract" way. I'm a bit freaked out by the "hearts and flowers" and made-up "vows" that seem to go with marriage over there.
You do know there’s an interesting phenomena at hand - these systems are being trained by internet chatter.
If enough people write articles o Marsha P being an ordinary transvestite hooker, and writing articles published frequently, it’s better than writing your congressman - Chat GPT will find it statistically more likely that Marsha was just a guy who sucked cock for $5 a go in a skirt.
The filters used to gather material are not heavily conditionedz
Now try telling it to the author and readers over at this Substack, where I tried to no avail. They don't want evidence. They don't want truth. But maybe you'll have better luck:
'Cis' is short for 'cisgender', the word they use to describe people who identify as the sex they were born as. You know, 99% of the planet. So 'cis gay' means a gay man who is male. As opposed to a 'gay man' who was born female. [They would phrase it as 'assigned female at birth'.]
Yes, it doesn't make any sense. Cisgender is a completely unnecessary word. It's not only offensive, it's just mind-numbingly stupid.
What I don’t understand about Trans is it seems universal, people wish to be viewed as attractive to the group they are interested in. The gays I know like masculine things. Guys in jock straps. Not guys in lacy panties. They like muscles and hair etc. Lesbians oddly seem to like masculine women, not delicate women. Straights like opposite sex straights. Who exactly do trans think they are attracting? Straight guys? Other than a closeted gay I don’t see straight guys being into trans. It seems they have removed themselves from the dating pool. Do they have a strange notion straight guys will find them attractive?
I spoke with a man who had worked as a transvestite prostitute in Brazil. We spoke in Spanish (not the native language of either of us), so there may have been inaccuracies on both sides, but my understanding was that his clients were, in the vast majority, men who lived otherwise “straight” lives, and sought his services either in order to be sexually adventurous, without having to think of themselves as “gay” or “bisexual”, or else simply because he cost less than a female prostitute.
Men like having their cocks sucked, and it may be helpful for straight men to have even the flimsiest excuse to imagine this is being done by a “woman”, not a man. Also, a surprisingly large number of heterosexual men (self-reportedly) prefer anal over vaginal intercourse with women, and if their wives or girlfriends are not willing to accommodate them in this way, then they know where to find it. A female prostitute of whom they requested this would almost certainly double her fee and “bust their budget”.
Basically, a “straight” man will stick his cock into any conveniently sized and shaped hole, be it the tube of a vacuum cleaner, a pig's arse/vagina, or (extraordinarily but well-documented) a chicken. In the last case, they do not have to make the choice between vagina or anus, since the hen's cloaca serves as both.
It strikes me that mud may lack the tensile resistance to be truly useful for such a purpose, but what would I know? And, lest any of us become too smug about it, perhaps we should balance that against the extraordinary variety of objects that both some women and some men insert recreationally into their vagina/anus, as reported by my friend, a former accident & emergency nurse. But to raise even the thinnest of eyebrows at such practices, or exhibit even the mildest of amusement, is now to commit that most heinous of hate crimes, “kink-shaming”.
Be that as it may, there are aspects of the sexuality of some self-declared “straight” men which I fear will remain an eternal mystery to me, for example that mutual (or jointly exhibitionistic) masturbation is somehow considered more acceptable and “less gay” than kissing each other on the lips, and that getting your own cock sucked by a male stranger is “less gay” than sucking even (or perhaps especially?) your best friend's cock.
Perhaps the “queerists” are not entirely wrong that for some people, libidinous attraction is rooted not in sex but in “gender”, in which case we can only interpret “gender” as some implied or explicit dominance-submission dynamic between the participants – in other words, precisely what both the gay and women's liberation movements of my youth stood so firmly against, but which now seems to be (once again) near-universally acceptable, dragging us back to a pre-20th-century world in which inequality between partners, be it based on gender, age or social status, was indeed regarded as a near-essential component of sexual attraction.
Weird. However your contention about what a straight man is willing to do does not comport with the guys I know. I have met guys who occasionally have sex with a prostitute. But they are usually tacky low life types. And I haven’t met many. It isn’t common. If it is common it sure isn’t talked about.
Guys and women cheat. As a species we are less monogamous than we pretend. But because there are lots of women around willing to have sex a prostitute is hardly needed.
In my city there are some prostitutes. But they congregate in a one square block area. If most guys would be willing to use them there would be a ton more I would think.
However I don’t know about men who have no possible girlfriend options. Maybe they do.
However, back to the original point. Assuming you don’t want to be a gay trans prostitute, who do trans think they are attractive to? I don’t know any guy, straight guy, who has ever looked at any trans and said ‘whoa….I’d hit that’. We like feminine things. Hips and curves and the more feminine the better. Similarly my gay male friends like uber male, not feminine.
To try to answer both your comments at once, I rhetorically overgeneralized "straight men" to get my point across that the people who hire or date "transwomen" are men who at least think of themselves as "straight". What possible interest would a gay man have in doing so?
On the other hand, I am gay, and am not attracted to what you call "uber male" men. I like my men to be gentle and sensitive, a bit like I try to be.
This is such a huge question! (Maybe a topic for a future post.) I think this:
Straight men who go trans have a fetish, plain and simple. And they become predators. They’re not trying to ‘attract’ anyone; it’s all about them and satisfying their fetish.
But for the gay guys who go trans, I do think some of them are under the delusion that they will attract straight guys. (It’s pretty universal that gay men love straight men. Sorry. We do. Can you blame us?!) But I think some of the young people who adopt a trans identity are using it as a shield to AVOID attracting anyone. Because they are so terrified of sex—understandable in today’s world. We need to steer them in a better direction.
Quote: "But I think some of the young people who adopt a trans identity are using it as a shield to AVOID attracting anyone. Because they are so terrified of sex—understandable in today’s world. We need to steer them in a better direction."
This is such an important point. I can only speak for females, of course. I know that many young girls who are starting to develop, who are going through puberty, are often frightened or horrified or confused or just terribly discomfited by the changes their bodies are going through, and especially by attention from older males. The latter can be thrilling or it can be terrifying (or both).
One way to get rid of those uncomfortable feelings, so these kids are being told, is to deny one's biological reality. Stop puberty in its tracks. Chop off those breasts. It's profoundly disturbing and destructive.
I went to an opera performance a few months ago where the "male soprano" was obviously a young woman -- a beautiful young woman, I might add -- whose chest scars were clearly visible and whose voice was still lovely. She'd chopped off her breasts but she hadn't taken testosterone (or she wouldn't have still had that voice). My husband and I found it so desperately sad to see her mutilated like that.
It’s obviously a mental illness that would get a girl or woman to have her healthy breasts amputated.
It’s the same as wanting a healthy limb amputated .
It should be illegal as it is for those suffering from BIID , (BODY INTEGRITY IDENTITY DISORDER ) , ( formerly know as apotemnophilia) , the mental illness of those who want healthy limbs chopped off.
Yes, Gerda, I remember reading about this desire to get healthy body parts amputated about 35 years ago and being gobsmacked by it. It's unquestionably a mental illness, as is "trans."
Real male sopranos – technical term “sopranists” – are a pretty rare subcategory of countertenor, who go through a rigorous and challenging training, building on a “natural gift” for falsetto singing which few of us possess. Their natural speaking voice is usually in the baritone range. So I am riled up by this fraud (if fraud it be) on more than one level, and for more than one reason.
Depending on the date of the opera, the part may have been written with a castrato in mind, and nobody raises any objection to females taking such roles in modern performances, obviously “dragging up” on stage, though usually with no or minimal “chest-binding”, as this is not conducive to good voice production.
If you can be bothered, please satisfy my curiosity by telling me what the opera was, and how you know the singer presented herself as male off- as well as on-stage. For all I know, she may well have had a double mastectomy for other, legitimate reasons. Another question which interests me, but I doubt you (or anybody) can answer, is why the director chose to have this character bare-chested, whoever the performer may have been.
Please don't take any of the above as a challenge to, or argument with your comment. You have simply sparked my curiosity (as a musician, among other things) to know more of the details.
The opera was "L'incoronazione di Poppea" by Monteverdi, so the part was most likely indeed written for a castrato.
The company performing it is called INSERIES, based in Washington, DC, and it specializes in presenting, shall we say, unusual interpretations of traditional opera. We've seen both excellent productions and off-the-wall, disappointing productions by them, although always with superb singing. In this case, they called the production simply, "Poppea".
Here's the link to the whole performance. You'll be able to see immediately what I mean by "off-the-wall":
Thanks so much for your repy, Lisa, and above all the links.
"Elijah" is unambiguously a male name, and the biog repeatedly refers to her as "Mr. McCormack", rather than simply "McCormack" or "Elijah", as would be more usual. She is undoubtedly a beautiful woman, and (at least facially) would easily pass as a beautiful, but much younger, man. Her receding hairline suggests to me that she has taken SOME testosterone, but has no doubt weighed the advice of her "transologist" against that of her voice doctor, and not taken too much.
I have skipped through the performance looking for scenes she appears in. She certainly has a beautiful voice too, though I note that it is "thinner" and less vibrato-laden than those of the other soprano leads, playing female parts; but I suspect this is a deliberate choice on her own or the musical director's part, rather than a reflection of her vocal capability.
But as to being a "male soprano", the claim is clearly fraudulent. Real sopranists are in high demand, and (if they're any good) their agents will secure large fees for them. At last we have a reverse equivalent of men robbing women of trophies in sports! (Though I suspect fewer people will care about it.)
But what do I know? Just to show you how stupid we all (or maybe just I) can be, I listened to the first two minutes of Poppea thinking "this Italian sounds funny" until I realized they were singing in English!
"I listened to the first two minutes of Poppea thinking 'this Italian sounds funny' until I realized they were singing in English!"
Ha ha! Love it!!
This production had interpolations of East Indian dancing, which frankly made no sense and didn't add anything. They just took up time and dragged out the performance. Also, the dancing itself wasn't very good. The couple next to me groaned every time one of these dances appeared; they left before intermission.
I adore Monteverdi but was tempted to leave myself. As a contrast, the other Monteverdi production we saw them do, last year, "The Return of Ulysses: Song of My Father," was wonderful. It combined the original story with themes of the Vietnam War. That combination really worked. So we're not averse to modern directors' messing around with tradition. It just has to make artistic sense.
I see a third group. Weak loser straights. 40-50, out of shape, belly getting bigger, no love life, no career. The reason they are such flops at life is because they are women! That’s it! They were trying to be something, men, they never could have been. I see a lot of them angrily walking around my city. Dangly earrings. Half their clothing feminine, half masculine. Seemingly unattractive to everyone. But they had no love life anyway, so not a big deal in a way.
"It’s pretty universal that gay men love straight men."
I must be a freak then, or at least an exception. I spent most of my young life determinedly avoiding any contact with straight men, even for a time living in what was popularly known as "the lesbian squat", in fact a commune composed of eight lesbians and two gay men. I have some straight male friends now, but the only straight man I can truly say I love is my stepson, who is unwaveringly (and prolifically) heterosexual. I suppose it is through him that I learned that straight men have feelings too (who would have imagined it?)
But I don't suppose many gay men spend their teens being "raised" by semi-separatist lesbian feminists.
I'm not fond of the phrase "trans rights activists" (TRAs), because these people are not advocating for any "rights" as traditionally understood, but rather for special privileges for a set of self-selected men.
As possible alternatives I suggest "transqueer activists" (TQAs) or "trans entitlement activists" (TEAs).
The problem with the word "rights" is that most people think "rights" are a good thing. This is of course a deliberate strategy by the TQAs, who have (I'm sorry to say) proven to be masters of language manipulation.
Yes, yes--I think I will start using 'transqueer activists' from now on Thanks!
I love TEAs -- trans entitlement activists.
*Edited to add: meaning I love the acronym, not the activists!
You nailed it. Trans is not a "community" or group of people. Trans is an agenda and that agenda is to 1) sexualize and/or mutilate and sterilize children 2) obliterate all boundaries among adults to turn every single person into a potential unwilling genital stimulator 3) turn life into one giant orgy 4) make $ doing all of the above.
✅
BeadleBlog, well done. A powerful, succinct, apt explanation.
Bookmarked, restacked and shared.
Gary, great research and analysis, as usual. And thank you for including Stormé DeLarvarie.
P.S. And great title for the article.
Transgenderism is genocide of lesbians by autogynepilic heterosexual men.
Hair, nails, a dress, fake boobs and earrings don't make you a woman any more than getting a face lift makes you a younger age.
Kelly, tell it to the author and readers over at this other Substack (Wonkette, no less! a supposedly feminist publication), where I tried to no avail. Maybe you'll have better luck:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/former-irishmancanadian-pm-leaves/comment/126221423
I will tell you from experience that the L’s, G’s and B’s NEVER asked to be incuded with the T’s
Yes, Kelly, agreed.
This mythology has successfully obliterated the real history. I heard someone on Pacifica just a few days ago claim that "transwomen of color" started the Stonewall uprising, which is demonstrably not the case. Martha Shelley, who Fred Seageant mentions, called together members of the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis to organize a march a month after Stonewall (not yet called Pride, it was before the first Pride march) and out of that came the Gay Liberation Front (title inspired by the NFL of Vietnam).
Great piece on the real history, Gary, thanks.
Have cross posted
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/we-will-not-lie-down-part-1
Dusty
I tried to explain the premise of this spot-on post to my gay son. I asked, "If you took a 'man' home and after the clothes dropped, found out 'he' had female genitalia, would you be ok with that?" His response was effectively, "Why are you so concerned with genitalia?" Whaaat? I was really confused by that answer. When I asked again if he would care, he equivocated and said 'no'. I didn't believe him. I said, 'they're trying to erase you', he was furious and stopped talking. He cites violence against Trans people as his reasoning. I told him that had been disproven. He wouldn't budge. I've saved this post for a time he can see past identifying with a fellow victim-group and understand this does not bode well for homosexuals. Thank you very much.
Thank you for sharing that. I hope he is able to break free. What a great mom you are! ❤️
🥹 Thanks.
Perfection. Your substack never disappoints.
Trans ideology is based on lies, so it’s not surprising that they lie about their leading role in gay history. They live and breathe lies!
If they told me that the sun was shining, I’d get an umbrella.
I think transtapo is a better take than activists.
Stonewall owes it all to trans has become the land acknowledgement of the Queer take over; Queer , The One Word that will rule them all.
I'm sorry to sound a discordant note here, but I wonder to what extent we on “our side” have not brought this disaster down on ourselves, as a reaction to our persistent denial/downplaying, throughout the 1980s and 90s, of the role of gender non-conformity in gay and lesbian identity/ies generally.
Do you remember the “Castro clones”, with their moustaches and workmen's shirts and jeans? When I first saw photos of them in the British gay press, at the very end of the 1970s, I took it to be some form of satirical street theatre. I called my friends over: “Come and look at these silly queens dressing up as men!” How wrong I was! It was quickly followed by ever more “masculine” representations of gay male sexuality/identity (usually involving leather). In the early 1980s, we nancy queens could still laugh openly at the customers of pubs in Earl's Court, London, as they stood in line in full biker gear for buses to take them home at closing time (11 p.m. in those days).
In parallel, we saw the emergence (and glorification? at least glamourization) of “lipstick lesbians”, who similarly thought fit to present themselves in accordance with a (heterosexually defined) image of “femininity”. Though very different in both presentation and intention, the evolution of the notion of “political lesbianism”, whereby commitment to other women as a class, “the sisterhood” (ideally but not necessarily avoiding sexual contact with men) was considered sufficient for you to label yourself “lesbian”, without having to get involved in any messy genital business, or even feel any sexual desire for another woman.
There had to be some reaction to that, though the “transgender” thing, which I first became aware of through middle-aged lesbian friends telling me that their ex-lovers were “becoming men” took me utterly by surprise.
I am also deeply uncomfortable with the narrative: “We have gay marriage now, so game over, we won”. Though I accept that marriage is a fait accompli in most of the West now, let it not be forgotten that it was a matter of vigorous dispute WITHIN as well as outside the gay/lesbian community/ies for at least two decades. Did we really seek “integration” into a heterosexual and patriarchal institution, or prefer to reach for our own forms of societal and legal organization? I don't think you will be in any doubt as to my own opinion, but that is just one of many arguments which I have lost.
As recently as 2002, I was one of a four-member panel speaking publicly on the subject. Three of us were against marriage, one in favour. I remember the occasion vividly, for many reasons: it was my one and only visit to the United States, among other things. But mostly I remember it as the last occasion (in my experience) on which it was still possible for us to publicly disagree, but not “demonize” each other, and still consider ourselves friends, allies and “sisters”.
I'm 69 (which is at least 80 in woman-years), so younger people, please feel free to “put me right”.
I appreciate your insights. We can definitely say Mistakes Were Made along the way.
It is so true—and no one ever talks about this—that there were lots of gay people who had no interest in gay marriage. I totally get that point of view. What’s been most surprising to me is how quickly it shifted to gay marriage not just being legal but almost compulsory! Who wanted THAT pressure?! (I’ll probably be writing more on that subject in the future!)
Is it compulsory now? Thank God I'm too old to worry about that!
For tax avoidance purposes, I would be perfectly prepared to marry my (heterosexual) stepson (legal here in Spain), but I would need to die not too long afterwards, in order to leave him free.
Here in Europe, we tend to regard it in that "civil contract" way. I'm a bit freaked out by the "hearts and flowers" and made-up "vows" that seem to go with marriage over there.
You do know there’s an interesting phenomena at hand - these systems are being trained by internet chatter.
If enough people write articles o Marsha P being an ordinary transvestite hooker, and writing articles published frequently, it’s better than writing your congressman - Chat GPT will find it statistically more likely that Marsha was just a guy who sucked cock for $5 a go in a skirt.
The filters used to gather material are not heavily conditionedz
Great write-up!
Now try telling it to the author and readers over at this Substack, where I tried to no avail. They don't want evidence. They don't want truth. But maybe you'll have better luck:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/former-irishmancanadian-pm-leaves/comment/126221423
What is CisGay? I am straight and not sure what that refers to.
'Cis' is short for 'cisgender', the word they use to describe people who identify as the sex they were born as. You know, 99% of the planet. So 'cis gay' means a gay man who is male. As opposed to a 'gay man' who was born female. [They would phrase it as 'assigned female at birth'.]
Yes, it doesn't make any sense. Cisgender is a completely unnecessary word. It's not only offensive, it's just mind-numbingly stupid.
What I don’t understand about Trans is it seems universal, people wish to be viewed as attractive to the group they are interested in. The gays I know like masculine things. Guys in jock straps. Not guys in lacy panties. They like muscles and hair etc. Lesbians oddly seem to like masculine women, not delicate women. Straights like opposite sex straights. Who exactly do trans think they are attracting? Straight guys? Other than a closeted gay I don’t see straight guys being into trans. It seems they have removed themselves from the dating pool. Do they have a strange notion straight guys will find them attractive?
I spoke with a man who had worked as a transvestite prostitute in Brazil. We spoke in Spanish (not the native language of either of us), so there may have been inaccuracies on both sides, but my understanding was that his clients were, in the vast majority, men who lived otherwise “straight” lives, and sought his services either in order to be sexually adventurous, without having to think of themselves as “gay” or “bisexual”, or else simply because he cost less than a female prostitute.
Men like having their cocks sucked, and it may be helpful for straight men to have even the flimsiest excuse to imagine this is being done by a “woman”, not a man. Also, a surprisingly large number of heterosexual men (self-reportedly) prefer anal over vaginal intercourse with women, and if their wives or girlfriends are not willing to accommodate them in this way, then they know where to find it. A female prostitute of whom they requested this would almost certainly double her fee and “bust their budget”.
Basically, a “straight” man will stick his cock into any conveniently sized and shaped hole, be it the tube of a vacuum cleaner, a pig's arse/vagina, or (extraordinarily but well-documented) a chicken. In the last case, they do not have to make the choice between vagina or anus, since the hen's cloaca serves as both.
Petre, a friend -- male -- said this to me once long ago. I am quoting him, so please, other readers, don't blame me:
"Men will fuck mud."
My girlfriends and I laugh about this all the time, and our husbands sheepishly admit they understand.
It strikes me that mud may lack the tensile resistance to be truly useful for such a purpose, but what would I know? And, lest any of us become too smug about it, perhaps we should balance that against the extraordinary variety of objects that both some women and some men insert recreationally into their vagina/anus, as reported by my friend, a former accident & emergency nurse. But to raise even the thinnest of eyebrows at such practices, or exhibit even the mildest of amusement, is now to commit that most heinous of hate crimes, “kink-shaming”.
Be that as it may, there are aspects of the sexuality of some self-declared “straight” men which I fear will remain an eternal mystery to me, for example that mutual (or jointly exhibitionistic) masturbation is somehow considered more acceptable and “less gay” than kissing each other on the lips, and that getting your own cock sucked by a male stranger is “less gay” than sucking even (or perhaps especially?) your best friend's cock.
Perhaps the “queerists” are not entirely wrong that for some people, libidinous attraction is rooted not in sex but in “gender”, in which case we can only interpret “gender” as some implied or explicit dominance-submission dynamic between the participants – in other words, precisely what both the gay and women's liberation movements of my youth stood so firmly against, but which now seems to be (once again) near-universally acceptable, dragging us back to a pre-20th-century world in which inequality between partners, be it based on gender, age or social status, was indeed regarded as a near-essential component of sexual attraction.
Ha, Petre! The mud thing was just metaphorical, to get the point across.
Weird. However your contention about what a straight man is willing to do does not comport with the guys I know. I have met guys who occasionally have sex with a prostitute. But they are usually tacky low life types. And I haven’t met many. It isn’t common. If it is common it sure isn’t talked about.
Guys and women cheat. As a species we are less monogamous than we pretend. But because there are lots of women around willing to have sex a prostitute is hardly needed.
In my city there are some prostitutes. But they congregate in a one square block area. If most guys would be willing to use them there would be a ton more I would think.
However I don’t know about men who have no possible girlfriend options. Maybe they do.
However, back to the original point. Assuming you don’t want to be a gay trans prostitute, who do trans think they are attractive to? I don’t know any guy, straight guy, who has ever looked at any trans and said ‘whoa….I’d hit that’. We like feminine things. Hips and curves and the more feminine the better. Similarly my gay male friends like uber male, not feminine.
Have you spoken to trans people about this?
To try to answer both your comments at once, I rhetorically overgeneralized "straight men" to get my point across that the people who hire or date "transwomen" are men who at least think of themselves as "straight". What possible interest would a gay man have in doing so?
On the other hand, I am gay, and am not attracted to what you call "uber male" men. I like my men to be gentle and sensitive, a bit like I try to be.
This is such a huge question! (Maybe a topic for a future post.) I think this:
Straight men who go trans have a fetish, plain and simple. And they become predators. They’re not trying to ‘attract’ anyone; it’s all about them and satisfying their fetish.
But for the gay guys who go trans, I do think some of them are under the delusion that they will attract straight guys. (It’s pretty universal that gay men love straight men. Sorry. We do. Can you blame us?!) But I think some of the young people who adopt a trans identity are using it as a shield to AVOID attracting anyone. Because they are so terrified of sex—understandable in today’s world. We need to steer them in a better direction.
Quote: "But I think some of the young people who adopt a trans identity are using it as a shield to AVOID attracting anyone. Because they are so terrified of sex—understandable in today’s world. We need to steer them in a better direction."
This is such an important point. I can only speak for females, of course. I know that many young girls who are starting to develop, who are going through puberty, are often frightened or horrified or confused or just terribly discomfited by the changes their bodies are going through, and especially by attention from older males. The latter can be thrilling or it can be terrifying (or both).
One way to get rid of those uncomfortable feelings, so these kids are being told, is to deny one's biological reality. Stop puberty in its tracks. Chop off those breasts. It's profoundly disturbing and destructive.
I went to an opera performance a few months ago where the "male soprano" was obviously a young woman -- a beautiful young woman, I might add -- whose chest scars were clearly visible and whose voice was still lovely. She'd chopped off her breasts but she hadn't taken testosterone (or she wouldn't have still had that voice). My husband and I found it so desperately sad to see her mutilated like that.
It’s obviously a mental illness that would get a girl or woman to have her healthy breasts amputated.
It’s the same as wanting a healthy limb amputated .
It should be illegal as it is for those suffering from BIID , (BODY INTEGRITY IDENTITY DISORDER ) , ( formerly know as apotemnophilia) , the mental illness of those who want healthy limbs chopped off.
Yes, Gerda, I remember reading about this desire to get healthy body parts amputated about 35 years ago and being gobsmacked by it. It's unquestionably a mental illness, as is "trans."
Real male sopranos – technical term “sopranists” – are a pretty rare subcategory of countertenor, who go through a rigorous and challenging training, building on a “natural gift” for falsetto singing which few of us possess. Their natural speaking voice is usually in the baritone range. So I am riled up by this fraud (if fraud it be) on more than one level, and for more than one reason.
Depending on the date of the opera, the part may have been written with a castrato in mind, and nobody raises any objection to females taking such roles in modern performances, obviously “dragging up” on stage, though usually with no or minimal “chest-binding”, as this is not conducive to good voice production.
If you can be bothered, please satisfy my curiosity by telling me what the opera was, and how you know the singer presented herself as male off- as well as on-stage. For all I know, she may well have had a double mastectomy for other, legitimate reasons. Another question which interests me, but I doubt you (or anybody) can answer, is why the director chose to have this character bare-chested, whoever the performer may have been.
Please don't take any of the above as a challenge to, or argument with your comment. You have simply sparked my curiosity (as a musician, among other things) to know more of the details.
Petre, I'm happy to answer your questions.
The opera was "L'incoronazione di Poppea" by Monteverdi, so the part was most likely indeed written for a castrato.
The company performing it is called INSERIES, based in Washington, DC, and it specializes in presenting, shall we say, unusual interpretations of traditional opera. We've seen both excellent productions and off-the-wall, disappointing productions by them, although always with superb singing. In this case, they called the production simply, "Poppea".
Here's the link to the whole performance. You'll be able to see immediately what I mean by "off-the-wall":
https://invision.inseries.org/productions/poppea
Elijah McCormack sang the parts of Amore/Valetto, and was listed in the cast as "male soprano," but it was obvious that she's a woman. Here's her bio:
https://elijahmccormacksoprano.com
In the production, she was wearing an open shirt, which clearly showed her surgical scars.
Thanks so much for your repy, Lisa, and above all the links.
"Elijah" is unambiguously a male name, and the biog repeatedly refers to her as "Mr. McCormack", rather than simply "McCormack" or "Elijah", as would be more usual. She is undoubtedly a beautiful woman, and (at least facially) would easily pass as a beautiful, but much younger, man. Her receding hairline suggests to me that she has taken SOME testosterone, but has no doubt weighed the advice of her "transologist" against that of her voice doctor, and not taken too much.
I have skipped through the performance looking for scenes she appears in. She certainly has a beautiful voice too, though I note that it is "thinner" and less vibrato-laden than those of the other soprano leads, playing female parts; but I suspect this is a deliberate choice on her own or the musical director's part, rather than a reflection of her vocal capability.
But as to being a "male soprano", the claim is clearly fraudulent. Real sopranists are in high demand, and (if they're any good) their agents will secure large fees for them. At last we have a reverse equivalent of men robbing women of trophies in sports! (Though I suspect fewer people will care about it.)
But what do I know? Just to show you how stupid we all (or maybe just I) can be, I listened to the first two minutes of Poppea thinking "this Italian sounds funny" until I realized they were singing in English!
"I listened to the first two minutes of Poppea thinking 'this Italian sounds funny' until I realized they were singing in English!"
Ha ha! Love it!!
This production had interpolations of East Indian dancing, which frankly made no sense and didn't add anything. They just took up time and dragged out the performance. Also, the dancing itself wasn't very good. The couple next to me groaned every time one of these dances appeared; they left before intermission.
I adore Monteverdi but was tempted to leave myself. As a contrast, the other Monteverdi production we saw them do, last year, "The Return of Ulysses: Song of My Father," was wonderful. It combined the original story with themes of the Vietnam War. That combination really worked. So we're not averse to modern directors' messing around with tradition. It just has to make artistic sense.
I see a third group. Weak loser straights. 40-50, out of shape, belly getting bigger, no love life, no career. The reason they are such flops at life is because they are women! That’s it! They were trying to be something, men, they never could have been. I see a lot of them angrily walking around my city. Dangly earrings. Half their clothing feminine, half masculine. Seemingly unattractive to everyone. But they had no love life anyway, so not a big deal in a way.
🎯OMG I know this type too!
"It’s pretty universal that gay men love straight men."
I must be a freak then, or at least an exception. I spent most of my young life determinedly avoiding any contact with straight men, even for a time living in what was popularly known as "the lesbian squat", in fact a commune composed of eight lesbians and two gay men. I have some straight male friends now, but the only straight man I can truly say I love is my stepson, who is unwaveringly (and prolifically) heterosexual. I suppose it is through him that I learned that straight men have feelings too (who would have imagined it?)
But I don't suppose many gay men spend their teens being "raised" by semi-separatist lesbian feminists.
This is way too confusing for me. I really don’t care as long as they leave me, my children and grandchildren alone. There the rub.