http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/11/29/sl-letter-of-the-day-having-regrets Comments On: SL Letter of the Day: Having Regrets by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Sat, 25 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Sat, 25 May 2013 11:45:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
@24 and re @26: I respect Dan but I gave up accepting holy writ from established authority when I left the Church; I'm a commenter on his blog, not an acolyte bound to accept my bishop's views on a matter. I think I'm on fairly firm ground in saying that if there's any real way of distinguishing between a straight man on the one hand and gay or bi fella on the other it is whether or not they enjoy sucking cock. Our friend the LW appears to enjoy sex with a woman, and sucking cock. That makes him bi. The fact that the cock is attached to somebody who can be, depending on the schema, be characterized as male or female is rather beside the point.

@27: So do I. They're called "women".
Posted by seeker6079]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:41:23 -0800 The Stranger
Since the letter is about hiring a sex worker and porn, in both cases specifically seeking out people with breasts and functional penises, I think it's fare to say that the people deliberately seeking this out do not view the objects of their fantasy as being interchangeable with other women. Swap out the porn dvd for one with plain ol' porn actresses and they won't say "Oh. Well, same thing."

If it were about having a long-term romantic pairing you could talk about the gender of the person on the inside, but this really doesn't apply to porn dvds.
Posted by IPJ]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:22:01 -0800 The Stranger Posted by venomlash]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:58:44 -0800 The Stranger I support Dan's belief that gay guys don't do females whether or not they've got dicks. I find the idea of doing a pre-op MTF nauseating, and I was 'straight' for 15 years. This guy's straight, folks.
Posted by OutInBumF]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:46:14 -0800 The Stranger Posted by pussnboots]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:40:13 -0800 The Stranger
@22 If he does go on to be a voracious cock-sucker, then Dan's advice to keep it secret is moot. ("If this truly was a ...never-again experience") But that voracious cock-sucker may still want his primary sexual and romantic relationship to be with a woman. And a lot of women find MM sex hot, so that's not going to be an insurmountable obstacle.

Posted by EricaP]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:36:15 -0800 The Stranger Oh, please, don't be obtuse.
Maybe not obtuse, just tactical. dchari would not be the first person to try and win an argument by playing a nonexistent bigotry card against an ally.

That's one of the charming things about the ideological divide: those on the right will bitch that those on the left are falsely using the _____card (there are more than a few) when, in fact the card is being properly and justly advanced. Slimy folks on the left will use it against friends to win arguments: the targeted ally people who are often afraid to call bullshit on the slander because they don't want to sound like the anti-________ assholes on the right, or because they've so internalized the argument that they guilt-buy it, or because they don't want other allies to say, "maybe he's right and you're just ignoring your own ______-ism!"
Posted by seeker6079]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:59:31 -0800 The Stranger
Oh, please, don't be obtuse. The rights that should be accorded to transwomen have zero to do with this. This isn't about fair bathroom access, this is about who her partner is sexually attracted to and intimate with. However GLTBQI alphabet soup allied you are, you still might find his interest to be a dealbreaker. If he is specifically seeking out a piece of anatomy she does not possess, she deserves to know. I know of many, many men that have these interests and freeze, choke, or panic the first time, only to go on to be voracious cock-suckers.
Posted by secretagent]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:07:46 -0800 The Stranger
They are, however, obliged to refrain from having secret sex with prostitutes.


Posted by seeker6079]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:55:19 -0800 The Stranger
If transwomen are either women or not, and they *are,* then there is nothing in his porn tastes to disclose to his girlfriend. He digs chicks. The end.

If transwomen are either women or not, and they aren’t, then this guy needs to ’fess up to being bi, because his taste in porn is gay and he’s just sucked a guy’s dick.

Who a transwoman is may be different from what she represents to a paying customer. Here we’re discussing the perspective of the paying customer.
Posted by Alison Cummins]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:17:40 -0800 The Stranger
So rah rah, yeah, more testing is better, but I would not expect it to be waltz-in-the-door simple to be tested for what he's risked.
Posted by Orsh]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:04:37 -0800 The Stranger Either you accept that trans women are women or you don't. Which is it?I accept that men who voluntary place penises in their mouths for sexual pleasure are gay or bisexual, not heterosexual. The characterization of the possessor of the penis is irrelevant.
Posted by seeker6079]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:04:23 -0800 The Stranger
If a racist wrote in using racial epitets it's not like we would expect him to just default to those for the duration of the letter because a precedent had been set.
Posted by cpt. tim]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:58:51 -0800 The Stranger
@10 good point.

@14 "this guy should've disclosed his tastes in porn to his girlfriend a long time ago?"

Why?

Posted by EricaP]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:50:36 -0800 The Stranger
That, and it's also very much a bi guy thing to do. For the obvious reasons. I've also met a few bi girls who like this kind of thing for exactly the same reasons.
Posted by gromm]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:44:58 -0800 The Stranger
And this is extra credit, but Dan, couldn't you have mentioned that this guy should've disclosed his tastes in porn to his girlfriend a long time ago?
Posted by dchari]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:44:24 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Uve]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:32:01 -0800 The Stranger
It’s inappropriate to use to describe a *person* though, unless they put “Shemale!” on their escort ad — which there is no indication that this particular sex worker did.
Posted by Alison Cummins]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:12:45 -0800 The Stranger Posted by BABH]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:06:01 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ricardo]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:29:38 -0800 The Stranger
This thread is about to get destroyed by the word choice police. 60 comments within the next half hour is my guess.
Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:21:53 -0800 The Stranger Posted by wxPDX]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:13:31 -0800 The Stranger getting with shemales is an entirely straight-male pursuit.So I haven't been gay since last year?

She wasn't an escort, though. Also, she was black, from Chicago, and her name was Michelle, so maybe there was something else going on in my mind.
Posted by Fred Casely]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:11:32 -0800 The Stranger Posted by evilvolus]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:04:03 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Hawke]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:00:41 -0800 The Stranger