My conquest of the categories of FtB articles continues apace, with this rip-roaring number about Feminism Gender and Sexuality. I don’t know if I’ve posted my thoughts about genital preference before, so I’ll lay out the main points.
It’s OK to have a genital preference, when it comes to doing the sex. When it comes to casual conversation, less so, but it’s a situational thing. I’d say a good rule of thumb is this – express your love for the genitals you want to get with, never express disgust for the genitals that you’d prefer to avoid. Somebody has those genitals, and doesn’t deserve to have to feel disgusting, right?
There are a lot of ramifications of this. Don’t equate your genital preference with your orientation, even if it makes intuitive sense. “I love vag because I’m a lesbian.” There are lesbians that don’t love vag for any number of reasons, there are lesbians who don’t have vag and don’t deserve to think of themselves as undesirable to lesbians for that reason – even tho it’s valid for that to be true in your case. Does that make sense? It’s complicated.
I find a very, very useful way to think of this is like fatphobia. It’s OK for you to not find fat people attractive. You can’t control what your instincts tell you, and they’ve been warped by simmering in global fatphobia your whole life. You shouldn’t have to force yourself to be with a person you can’t physically love, and much more importantly, no fat person deserves to be stuck with somebody who cannot physically love them.
But wearing a “no fatties” t-shirt or dropping that preference in anything but the most hushed and apologetic tones is a fucking vile thing to do. Likewise, unless a transbian makes a pass at ye, vag-requiring lesbian, don’t feel the need to bring it up. It just isn’t necessary, until it is, which is sure to be an extremely rare occurrence. (Ditto in reverse gay dudes in cis/trans situations.)
This is one way terfs ruin shit for everyone. Lesbians should be able to yell about how much they love muff as much as gay men yell about dick. It’s still an option, of course, but thanks to terfs identifying AFAB parts with their hate movement by way of their internet handles and slogans, any lesbian reveling in their genital preference may result in a nearby trans person of any stripe feeling unsafe or unsettled. Is this person going to try to harm me? Don’t know. Non-nazi dykes don’t deserve to have to think about that every time they put on the “I Love Pussy” hat.
I could be wrong about any of this in any way; I am not up on the current discourse, and have never had a meaningful conversation with genital dysphoria-having person about the subject.
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Thanks for this post. I’m cis and don’t know that much, but this seems like it should be common sense.
My short view is that if you and some other person are mutually thinking about genital interaction in any way, then genitals are an appropriate topic. But until then, it is not.
Most people know they don’t need to discuss genitalia with their boss or their postal worker or their junior high math teacher. So the most obvious extrapolation should be not to discuss this with anyone, unless they are in such a special class, not even with most of your friends, until it is relevant.
I use the toilet every day, and also see no reason to discuss which one, or anything about that with anyone else under almost any circumstance. So anyone who brings up any of the above seems as if they have issues I can’t help them with, unless they’re preparing to make a pass at me or hoping for one.
I was thinking of contexts like pride parades, strolling the gayborhood, or posting on edgy social media accounts. For nearly any other circumstance? Be way more circumspect, as you say. Anything else is literally sexual harassment. I think that’s kinda funny, terfs love to say sexual harassment is the worstiest thing in the universe, but by making everything in the world about genitals, they are 1000% sexually harassing all of us.