Follow-Up to Pandora's Box

A follow up to Pandora’s Box

So I did a thing on Saturday that I called “Pandora’s Box.” It was published in Filthy on Sunday morning (I disagree with the placement, but there was a lot of talk about genitals in it, so… I suppose I can’t be that mad). It was all about how transgender people fit into lesbianism. It has been read, as of this writing, 79 times. One of those times was by a woman with whom I have a complicated relationship. Her name is Layla. She’s Pakistani, Muslim, beautiful, intelligent, and lesbian. And not necessarily in that order. I met her on a dating website, and our early conversations had led me to believe that maybe it was possible between us. What ensued was a genuine, at times confusing, and intense (for me, I can’t speak for her) friendship culminating in absolutely nothing but friendship. But she’s an awesome friend, so that’s fine.

I think she might have felt attacked by the article, given our odd history, and we discussed it, and with her permission, I’d like to share my conversation here, with commentary.

Layla

“Congrats, I read the article. Interesting points.”

Me

“Thanks! I enjoy the chance to flex my sense of humor. :)”

“And if I can make sense while doing it, even better.”

Layla

“Though there are some things to discuss. Do you think that people are only attracted based on secondary sexual characteristics? Or are some people really just attracted to one set of genitalia more than another? And some people who are bisexual might be attracted to both types. Ideally, if there were true hermaphroditism, people that could be attractive to some? I think about that. Just my thoughts.”

“If someone knows that they are attracted to a specific type of genitalia sexually, viscerally, how do they bring it up at the right time in the relationship without hurting someone or asking questions which would seem too invasive? A lot of times people can make assumptions about those things, and avoid the conversation until they are sexually involved with someone but other times you can’t make assumptions, so when would be the right time?”

Me

“I don’t think that people are *only* attracted to secondary sex characteristics, but I do think the all-powerful first impression is based on secondary and tertiary sex characteristics. I think they’re way more important than primary sex characteristics, which one only spends a minority of their time around.”

Commentary: I failed to address the very cogent question of timing. For me, it’s my stated policy that primary sex characteristics are relevant before a sexual encounter, but *just* before. I think that if your decision to date someone hangs on one single factor, then there’s a possibility you’re doing it wrong. Again, this is just my opinion.

Layla

I think there are a lot of different types of people out there with different perspectives. True, people don’t spend a lot of time having sex, but they sure do spend a lot of time thinking about it and looking for mates for that purpose to fulfill them sexually. And maybe some people are just aroused by a certain type of genitalia and find it hard to imagine going without it. I suppose for people who are attracted to penises, it’s easier because they have a lot of prosthetic devices for that. For example, if there was a gay or bisexual man who is attracted to a trans man who did not have phalloplasty, they could use some prosthetics and harnesses. However, if you’re a lesbian and attracted to vaginas, and you like giving oral sex to women, then there isn’t a prosthetic for that, unfortunately…

Commentary: This is not precisely accurate, but it is fair to say that there’s not a convincing one. I did not feel it prudent to mention it at that time. It didn’t add anything to the conversation and would have just made the whole thing weird and awkward. And would also have sounded like begging, and I may be shameless, but I do have some pride.

… Not to say that all lesbians think that way, but there are some that do.”

Me

“I guess when you peel back the humorous layers to this, that’s really the question… To me, and this is just to me, when I… Fantasize… It’s very much a whole person kind of thing. I feel like fantasizing just on genitalia is, well, I don’t really get that.”

“And I suppose it’s very much a ‘me’ thing that I’m relatively forgiving in terms of what’s going on in my partners’ pants. I’m quite strict about secondary and tertiary sex characteristics and how they affect the whole person, but since my ideal encounter could just as easily be accomplished with prosthetics, I’m not overly hung up on whether it is or is not a prosthetic.”

Layla

“I didn’t know what a TERF [trans-exclusionary radical feminist, it’s not a slur] was, but I think that’s prejudice, so I don’t think like them. I can relate sort of but not saying I completely understand as often times there are people who have racial preferences and only want to date White people, so I kind of feel like that is their preference of what they are attracted to, but is there something prejudiced about that? That another skin color turns them off that much? So maybe that is how you feel about the genital hang up?”

“To be fair, it is not only White people, my good friend from work is Persian, and only wants to date other Persians.”

“I guess genitals do matter to some people… There are some gay men maybe given to bisexual tendencies as you know who would go out with a very feminine trans woman that still has a penis and there are some lesbian women who will date someone butch but have trouble with and might leave their girlfriend if they want to transition and get a phalloplasty. So in your own case, you would not date a woman that came off very masculine?”

“I don’t know what the percentage of people is that have a hang-up about genitals vs other characteristics, but it would be an interesting survey. I think the whole person matters too, but I’m not really proud of myself for my arousal at female genitals. It’s weird, but I am more aroused by that than I am breasts, etc. Since we’re friends, I figure we can talk about this. For that reason, I could probably even date a more masculine woman, not that I’m saying genitals define who is a woman, but just for me what I am viscerally attracted to.”

Me

“It’s difficult because attraction is necessarily discriminatory. So in a way, no [it’s not wrong to be attracted to certain skin colors]. But being a White person, for example, who only dates White people means excluding a LOT of beautiful people on the basis of “that’s not what I like” and I find something deeply unfair in that. I don’t know if that’s a good analogy for genital preference, though.”

“We’re friends, so we can definitely talk about this, no problem. :)”

“Being a lesbian without a genital preference, I probably don’t have the proper frame of reference to understand this entirely, but I guess what I want is for people to explore why they have the biases they have. Everyone has them, and I guess it’s from my time in intelligence, but I think it’s important to examine those biases regularly.”

Layla

“Very true. But what if it’s just a visceral gut reaction? Do you have a style or reference though, like ultra-butch bordering on FTM? Would you be attracted to that?”

Me

“I think we have reactions for reasons and it’s worth understanding what those reasons are.”

“So for me, ultra-butch types are not what I’m into because I tend to like femininity in expression and behavior.”

Layla

“So potentially some people could consider that unfair because what is femininity anyway, and they are still women, right? So there could be a butch woman attracted to you that feels it is unfair? But like you said, attraction is an exclusionary process… Even for pansexual people because they aren’t attracted to every human being in the universe.”

Me

“Exactly. This is an unfair process and there’s no changing that. That’s why I feel that it’s so important to understand our biases at the deepest possible levels. The difference between senseless and unfair, in my estimation, is the depth of the reasoning behind it.”

“I’m trying to be really careful, because I can hear myself, and I know we’re right on the line between ‘decent argument’ and ‘convincing the world to date me’ and I want to stay on the right side of it.”

Layla

“LOL, I think we’re all ‘convincing the world to date us’ in this world.”

Me

“Truth.”

“But I also think that saying it isn’t really cool and it’s kinda sad. Especially in our case, where we’ve been over this particular ground more than once.”

Commentary: I have in the past asked for clarification on our relationship after a number of things that happened that I don’t really consider to be hallmarks of platonic friendship. She drives me crazy, is super cute, and I love her mind, but we are just friends. Which I think is where she thinks this whole thing was coming from. I think in her mind, she thought that I wrote a thing complaining about our relationship and all that it was not. Her response seemed too defensive and very personally-applicable to be not about us. Maybe I’m misreading that, though.

Layla

“Yes, ideally we would all just care about the aura of a person and the packaging, color, parts, and appearance wouldn’t matter.”

Commentary: Hang on a tick, I never said all that… I very much want to find my future partner to be physically beautiful as well as a beautiful mind and soul. But I take her point. Would it were that genitalia were universally irrelevant to a conversation about sexual attraction…

Me

“Alas, it should be so easy…”

Layla

“But we are all victims and we are all culprits…”

Commentary: Well said! I can’t help loving that woman at least a little bit. This is where the conversation then veered into Solo: A Star Wars Story, so there’s a whole bunch of spoiler-laden non-sequitur after this point. So I asked her if it was okay to write this up and post it because I felt that we had an important conversation there. And I also wanted to bring it up so I can say that this is the kind of conversation that my original post, Pandora’s Box, was meant to spark. And no, it’s unlikely that you’re going to change any minds, but you might cause someone to realize that their biases are based on nonsensical or false assumptions. It’s not much, but it’s a start…