@100 JibeHo: Congrats on scoring the Hunsky!!

@92 Pan Sapien: You make some good points. But guess what? I actually DO soap and rinse myself when cleaning my vulva and vagina, as well as my butt. Unfortunately, it sounds like many uncut men and boys--like you and GAGGING's very sexy German boyfriend, for two---have foreskin sensitivity to bar soap (hypoallergenic liquid soaps or gels won't work either?). You, GAGGING's BF et al have my sympathy there--no snark intended. I'd be totally miserable if I couldn't enjoy a relaxing and cleansing soak.

@92 Pan Sapien: One post script, however. If the LW's very sexy uncut German boyfriend wasn't reeking that badly, why did she sign herself as GAGGING?

@95 CMDwannabe: Many thanks. It's not often I score a slam dunk in the Savage Love comment thread.

@66 EmmaLiz: OMG---how did I miss your spot on comment? Bravo--yours is exactly the point(s) I was trying to make concerning GAGGING's situation.
Lionface, Pan Sapien, et al in defense of GAGGING's very sexy German boyfriend, please read EmmaLiz's comment @66. She covers it well.

Lionface @93: If non-penis-havers are being expected to interact with the penises of penis-havers, we're entitled to have an opinion on how clean those penises should be. I didn't see any lesbians commenting so we're all good as far as pertinence is concerned.

JibeHo @100: I also question why you consider yourself persona non grata. Personally, I would love to read more of your comments, as we don't seem to get much of the lesbian perspective. Please stick around!

@93 (Lionface)
QUOTE:I note that the most ardent critics of this guy's body are non-penis-havers. Hmm.
UNQUOTE

Is it so difficult that non-penis-havers would react so strongly to this issue? As a penis-haver who will never choose to be in physical contact with a non-penis haver, you do not understand how troubling such contact can be: from the incredible though rare allergy to semen, to BV (where the pH balance is upset), to yeast infections, we have to worry about all possibilities!

My my Lionface, you do like to scold. And given you applaud free flowing skanky cock slime, it’s a blessing for all perhaps that you are a gay man.

Scandal afoot in Qld, at the Brisbane Writers Festival. It appears they were going to sponsor a talk by Germaine Greer, on her new book. Her ignorant stance on trans people has now focused on rape. She should have shut it long ago. Her book The Female Eunuch was amazing, at the time.
So, the festival has withdrawn their support. Yah! Much to the chargrin of some. It’s caused quite a noise from the literary set across the country.
Some alternative venue has been organised, for her to sprout her crap and get five more minutes of attention. Sad.

Odd, Lava. Given your comments on how trans women "erase cis women" I thought you'd be in agreement with Ms Greer? Glad to see you've changed your tune, and glad to see hateful transphobes, no matter how once-relevant, losing their platforms.

Fan.. do we have to go thru this again? I explained my position pretty clearly. And at no point have I ever been in agreement with Ms Greer. And either I haven’t explained myself adequately to you, which I don’t believe, or you are not taking in what I’ve said. I spoke about cis women being erased, and gave several examples where I saw it had happened. Not all trans women threaten to beat up transphobic feminists, the bulk of trans women move amongst cis women just fine.
Ms Greers position is coming from ignorance, she hasn’t read and commented on SL for several years, or has she. You there Germaine? No. Didn’t think so. She is a public figure and shows no care given the number of trans women murdered.

Also Fan, I didn’t say it was just trans women calling cis lesbians transphobic if they didn’t want to date trans women. That response has come from cis people and trans people.

I feel a lot of concern for trans women Fan, the danger so many of them are in. The chatter from the few drowns out the concerns of the many. The way forward is not about ignoring cis women’s reality or trans women’s reality. We can live side by side as sisters.

The compliment of considering me capable of stealth shall be ranked almost in the same drawer with my impersonator. I still have not decided what the statute of limitations should be for my teasing Ms Cute about actually being taken in by one of the impostor's posts - and not one of the best ones done.

Someone clearly has not seen my reminding MRAs that I saw the original broadcast of the episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show when Lou Grant told Mary that of course he paid her predecessor more because, "He was a man; he had a wife and children to support!" But, as that is elsewhere, there's no reason anybody should. Or I would not need Rumpole to make the case for my view that the abortion question should be settled entirely by women. Of course, I don't frame such views to people's liking, because I am not attempting to curry favour, which is likely a great part of the offence.

Now one could hardly have much appreciation for Julius King (although the only other person around here who seems to get that point is Ms Erica) and simultaneously attempt to be (I think) Edith Cavell ("I must have no hatred in my heart"). But this has provided me with an interesting meditation upon with how much contempt one can or ought to cope within oneself (Mr Savage certainly expresses a great deal), and how much of a veil it is wise to draw across the contempt of others.

I disagree with Dan that HOMO and his bf are doomed to bigotry. If the differences are harmless (unless the arguments involve religious pressure or misogyny they sound harmless) then perhaps HOMO can learn respect for human individuality.

I don't think HOMO wants to be intolerant of women or straightness or religion but he may have some reasonable fears he can discuss, has Mr HOMO explored whether he is bi, does he believe his religion is the morally correct one, or disrespect HOMO's atheism? HOMO may have been church squicked for good reason, maybe he looks bigoted towards religious people simply because he doesn't give his reasons. Same with women friends, perhaps the concern is possible bisexuality rather than misogyny. Perhaps he should trust his feelings and follow them, maybe he is sensing possible danger.. or maybe he is just intolerant.

He may already sense the growth benefits from dating someone outside his campy circle,and honestly asking how to tolerate differences. I think the answer is by shifting your intolerance to HARM rather than DIFFERENCE. The former is a good basis for fear but as HOMO grows he'll see more examples of harmless weirdness or difference which proves beneficial when tolerated. Also helps to give yourself permission to like whatever the hell you like so long as it's not causing anyone HARM. Then extend that permission to others. If he wants to break up because he's not into Mr HOMO that's fine. But Mr HOMO is not wrong for liking different things.

I think assholes and genitals should be soaped mostly for sex partners. The whole body should be soaped at least every few days just for public use. Cetaphil is good for sensitive skin. And just as some people don't look right FOR YOU some people don't smell right FOR YOU that's not an objective flaw. People like different smells, don't give them a hard time if they can't change just make your controlling self move on!

Thanks BDF! I think ultimatums are nearly unethical, if they are used no one should be surprised. I didn't like this plan to switch from heavy reassurance to sudden break up she's already having emotional problems. Love reading you!

Lionface, I've loved reading you too lately. And really happy to see JibeHo back too. Venn can be unsympathetic to women in particular but I do believe he tries to be fair. There is some insensitivity to men on this board too..

JibeHo, I concur with BDF. I've always enjoyed your posts, and as another who contributes only occasionally, I empathise. I know whereof you speak - I often skip over The Great Orator because the bitterness underlying most of those posts makes my lips pucker. You definitely are not alone in your conclusions.

@ my 109

I forgot to include UTIs as another concern for non-penis-havers!

@110 LavaGirl: Ha ha and +1. Spot on and kudos. I'm surprised Dan hasn't stepped in and commented to Lionface about his fascination with oozing green cock slime.

Aquitainesplaining: "I plot and plan. That's how a queen in prison spends her time."

I shall get some good use out of this thread; I have just told a bunch on anti-SJWs elsewhere that two of my greatest detractors here have been fair to me despite their personal distaste, and it has been scored as a point against the belief that the entire left is completely regressive.

As the occasion on which Ms Rand called me a racist only brought to mind Elinor's telling Marianne and Willoughby that their censure of Colonel Brandon may be praise, I have no objection to being called a misogynist, though any woman who does so flatters herself.

I don't think I ever commented on the other letter, but I will tell Mr Lion that I agree with Ms Fan; those who have to do with [blank]-havers have some say in [blank]-related matters. Consider them junior partners, like Lancelot Fortescue in A Pocket Full of Rye.

I do, think, though, that Ms Cute or any other Kinsey Zero women should have the largest share of that minor voice.

@JibeHo, I'm butting in here, but I wanted to say that while I can see how Lava's comments could be taken the way you took them in 99, we have had a conversation before about a certain trend in history in which some radical feminist separatists were exclusively anti-man in general to the point of not letting men into their lives at all in any aspect- sort of the female experience of the male MGTOW. It was in the time period Lava is discussing, there is another poster here (Sporty I think) whose mom was caught up in this, and we did speculate to what extent abuse affected them and their relationships with their fathers etc. My own stance, even in that context, is different from Lava's as I don't think that something as straight forward cause and effect as bad dad = separatist radical feminist really make sense to explain a movement, but like I don't think it's so simple with homophobia and the sort of abuse that many gay men of Venn's generation experienced, especially with conversion therapy and the like, but when I read Lava's comment, it was in the context of having had this prior conversation and so I knew what she was getting at- a certain group of women in a certain time in history following a certain type of radical feminism. Even without this context though, you can see that she was talking specifically of her own experience 'in my past' etc.Not a blanket statement of all rad feminists ever.

BTW I don't think experiences of abuse or discrimination justify bigotry in any form, but it does make the individuals more sympathetic and I think that analysis of the cultural, historical and personal experiences/philosophies that enhance bigotry can make us a little smarter, though to what extent we are willing to tolerate and discuss that individually will all be different, and I think it's perfectly acceptable to decide your answer is not at all. My own tends to vary with individuals- sometimes I'm more forgiving and I'm sure we all struggle with biases in some ways- yet I have absolutely no tolerance for this in systems or positions of power.

JibeHo- I also like your posts and hope you keep showing up.
I second EL @ 123 (no award for this number?) that Lava wasn’t referring to you specifically, but rather to a phenomenon some of us have encountered back in the days. The sentiment Lava expressed was similar to the one I heard from a friend who shared a house with some identified as separatists and alluded to their horrible experiences, though never specified.

@62 Lionface: Yes, but there's no excuse for hygiene phobia, either--yours or anyone else's.

@108 If I were subby and into vaginas or with a trans man, I would expect just as much of a mouthful or assful of musk and let's say "flavor" as I would in this case.

@109 That is a fair point! I don't have those issues. Therefore I must qualify my statements as pertaining to aesthetics rather than health.

@110 This thread is 90% scolding of the subject of GAGGING's letter, the other 10% is mostly comments about the other letter writers, so, I'm in keeping with the general tone.

@117 Thank you kindly, and I appreciate your points here! I mean, I'm biased since I agree with them, but still. With that said, I'm not 100% sure where you're getting the bisexuality bit from HOMO? My husband seems to have at least as many female friends as male ones and he's bi. I don't really know out bisexual guys who shy away from women. Maybe you meant he's uncomfortable because he's in the closet? I could see that, though if that's the case (and it could be), that would definitely be a solid case for him to get some counseling, there's no good that comes from the closet. But anyways, it's nice to hear a friendly voice, thank you!

EmmaLiz @123: Thanks for that background. Generally, when I see two posters getting into a one-on-one slanging match, that's when I conclude it's not my monkey and start scrolling. I don't know how old JibeHo is but Lava is indeed speaking from experience about a certain type of feminist separatist that gained a voice in the 1970s, not all feminists, and not all radical feminists -- and her speculation about where this attitude came from. Given how much every single one of us is influenced by our relationship with our parents, it's not an unreasonable speculation, though the truth in any individual's case is no doubt more complicated. Thank you also for the tip that Sportlandia's mother was one of these separatist feminists. If that's true, it explains a lot about his own attitude.

CMD @124: Auntie Grizelda does not have the monopoly on numerical-based awards. Feel free to bestow your own awards as you see fit!

Lionface @108: As someone who puts their face into both male and female crotches, I can tell you that if you were regularly interacting with vaginas you would also want those to be within an acceptable range of cleanliness. Sure, vaginas have a smell and flavor, but it's not -- and shouldn't be -- an unpleasant one, and if it is, there's a problem. We've had a letter along these lines from a straight man and surprise, the reactions were the same.

Oops, that was Lionface @126 re @108.

Yes, I’ve always enjoyed JibeHo’s posts. I like your posts too Lionface. Dan didn’t post letters from gay men much till recently. It looked like gay men had no relationship problems, or he just didn’t trust us to know how to deal? Mr Venn has been here, though he is cryptic.

My two alpha male sons have both landed at the same time, and I’m happy I live with the other two sons. These bully boys are just passing thru.
I’m trying to trim up the edges of their brass natures, without curtailing their energy. The carpenter is building us a new shower, and the other one just seems to bark a lot.

Battling with you guys keeps me in shape for when these whirling young still learning to be men creatures turn up at the door.

I can plead guilty to not accepting the Women Are Wonderful narrative. (Even Rumpole cheerfully submitted a guilty plea - to robbery, once the charge of shooting the bank guard was withdrawn - in Rumpole's Last Case, when his successful Four-Horse Accumulator - before the guard who placed the bet for him absconded with the 330,000 pounds - led him into saying in open court exactly what he thought of Judge Bullingham. [I've long thought that the names of the four horses - Pretty Balloon, Mother's Ruin, Ever So Grateful and Kiss-o-gram - would make an excellent question on Only Connect, perhaps on the Wall round.])

Ms Fan - Recalling how my so-called aunt used to have to bring a blanket to chess tournaments because the air conditioning was too male-oriented for her, I'm inclined to ask if you think women and men in general have different odour thresholds. At least this is an easier fix than our earlier discussion of FM-v-FF-v-MM consent, where I foresaw the possibility that rules designed for women might well be applied to MM encounters (if memory serves, Ms Erica saw the point).

Lionface,
Thanks for helping me develop clarity of communication. I'm always working on it. My best guess for why women/straight friends may present a possible source of harm for HOMO is that Mr HOMO (his partner) may be bi.. I wonder if they've talked much about orientation. The overnights with a woman and Mr HOMO's comfort with a more straight scene might feel threatening if HOMO suspects that Mr HOMO is somewhat bi. It may help to talk about orientation. +I can think of tons of reasons why a religious service could offend HOMO, but he doesn't say exactly why, he seems to have difficulty pinpointing the sources of his discomfort. He SHOULD pay attention to his gut but unless it feels like an emergency, maybe wait to act on fear until he can explain himself.

JibeHo,
I'm heading Lusby way in 3 weeks. I'm having trouble finding a good club or two. I don't recognize any anymore. I like jungle and house mostly, got any good recommendations?

Venn,
Heart production goes by volume. Heat loss goes by surface area. Men are larger. More volume to surface area. Women prefer warmer temperatures to men. Men like to turn the ac higher than women. I have never noticed or read about differences in smell, beyond how women smell compatible immune systems in their mates.

Lionface,

I feel like there is a bit of miscommunication here. Because you keep talking about musky smelling body parts vs expectations of no smell or smell like a beauty product. But that's not what the LW is talking about. If a dick "really stinks" when it is freshly showered, this is not a musky normal body odor at the end of a day. You seem to be talking about a different thing than the LW.

Again, it's fine if someone has a fetish for a dick that really stinks even when it is clean, but that's an outlier and not something that is relevant to the LW (or most posters here). It has nothing to do with this situation.

And again, it's fine if someone has an expectation of perfectly sparkling clean genitalia that smells like lavender- so long as they realize that this is likewise an outlier and that all genitalia has a natural odor, one that is especially enhanced when it's been confined in pants all day long. People who need genitalia to be freshly showered before they'll get near to it do exist- fine so long as they aren't shaming others for their natural odors.

And we can talk about our personal preferences all day long, that's fun too.

But in this letter, this LW has no such fetish and she's talking about a dick that really stinks (her words) even after a shower. This is not the same thing as you are talking about- this is not about natural odor. This is not about someone being squeamish or scolding. It's a specific problem- a dick should not really stink when it is freshly showered, circumcised or not. That is an indication of a problem.

Also about who has the authority to talk on this subject, obviously the people who are most qualified are gay men- those who have both a penis that they must keep clean as well as a lot of experience with the smells of other penises.

Women without dicks such as myself obviously have no firsthand experience with keeping one clean though of course we have partners and have washed male children. But we have plenty of experience with the smells of other penises, more than straight men by far.

The interesting split here isn't about how women think of cleaning a dick- obviously women should not be advising men on such a thing when other men can offer much better advice. But it's about the idea of what smell is acceptable to put in your mouth. It might be that gay men are more likely to enjoy cocks with a much stronger odor (natural or not) than straight women are. Good for them if that is the case- I'm sure there is no shortage of smelly cocks for them to enjoy. Likewise for women who might personally have that preference and perhaps there are fewer of them. Again, this isn't really relevant to this particular letter as this woman (and most of the female posters here) does not enjoy putting a stinky cock in her mouth. And there is no authority that owning a cock gives you over whether or not someone else should enjoy the smell of that cock. Let's not mix the two things up.

My experience of men who eat pussy is that some could spend their lives happily with their face up in one and enjoy all range of smells. My own vagina smells different at different times of the month- having never had another vagina close enough to my own nose I have no idea if my own range of smells is in the average range or not, but the odors are noticeably different depending on where I am on my cycle. And obviously the difference between freshly showered and end of a long day. My experience with straight men is that some love any and all smells. Some want it very freshly showered and are picky about hair and odor- want it as neutral as possible. The majority just take it as it is and whatever preferences they have regarding odor are not a big enough deal for them to make a fuss over. I must've missed the part of the conversation that explained what being trans would have to do with any of this?

Venn- While certainly a good writer your style often seems intentionally “cryptic,” which may come across as aloof to some whether intentional or not. You may also be losing some attention and sympathy as a result.

As for gendered weather sensitivity, generally women are wearing lighter clothes then men’s official suits and ties, hence more sensitive to cold in the work place and elsewhere when the cooling system caters for jacket wearers.

Gendered sense of smell- few trans women on hormones told me one of the very noticeable changes is they now have a much stronger sense of smell.

I don't know if there's any science behind gendered a/c preferences, but I do find that I get colder more easily than a lot of men I know and likewise so do many other women I know, so anecdotally this holds true. However, anecdotally again, I've found that overweight people tend to want the a/c cooler as well so it skews results. My husband and male friends who are fit tend to want the a/c less cool than my mother and female friends who are not- so if you tried to make a comparison that was just based on gender, it would not skew towards women liking it warmer unless you controlled for weight.

In any case, I have no idea why it would be offensive that a woman who visits a place where men keep the a/c cool would bring a blanket and note that the men are keeping it cooler than she can handle. Seems like she has correctly identified a personal problem and solved it. If she lived there, they could perhaps find a more mutually comfortable solution, but as a visitor, I tend to bring a jumper everywhere I go. Sometimes it really is astounding how cold people keep their houses though, especially in the south- there are relatives's homes that I literally cannot comfortably visit. I think this has more to do with acclimation than gender though.

@124 CMD: I agree with BiDanFan @128: a Lucky @123 Award? Go for it, and Congrats, EmmaLiz @123!

I don’t get that you hate women Mr Venn, only you know what’s in your heart. And we all carry some expectation. Maybe if I hadn’t had such a lovely dad, I would have been better placed to deal with some of the nasty men I’ve been with. Then my mother was the model for those choices.

EmmaLiz The way I saw Lava's comment was that she assumes (based on some people she knew almost 50 years ago) that all radical feminist lesbians are that way because they were damaged by their fathers. I'm sure that the gay men in the audience would be just as peeved as I was, if someone tried to explain their sexuality with the allegation that it is all down to the fact that they weren't breastfed! Seriously. It's offensive. Of course the radical feminist part is perhaps the distinction Lava was hanging her rather broad brush on, but seriously, it rankles.

As a lesbian, of the normal variety, I get that shit ALL the time. Something traumatic must have happened to me in my childhood to ruin me. I'm not sure gay men get that same flavor of pushback, although they deal with other (more dangerous) strains of homophobia.

Having been a gay woman my entire adult life and having lived in 4 very different parts of the country in that adulthood, I can honestly say that I have never met any of these separatist lesbians. Perhaps they are such separatists that because I interact with and have friendships with men on a daily basis, I don't run into them. The other possibility is that they are such a small population, they are actually hard to find. Of course the internet changes that, but I'd venture that there are more kinksters into scat than there are RFLs. And since it was asked earlier, I'm 55.

Lastly, Venn is the separatist here. He's been arguing for ages that the G should break off from the LBTQ. As far as I can tell, it's because sometimes lesbians prefer to call themselves gay (which is a much less cringe-inducing word) and therefore lesbians are guilty of gay man erasure. At least that's my guess...

Sorry Philo - I have no idea where that place is you speak of...Maryland? Plus I'm old. I typically just hang with my usual gang on weekends...

JibeHo- I was introduced to the separatist phenomenon while visiting London back in 1983. Apparently it was also a thing in the US. Chirlane McCray, NYC mayor Bill Blasio’s wife, was identified as as one before meeting him in the mid 1980’s (while in her mid 30’s.) Our very own Sportlandia wrote here something about his mother, and I assume he grew up in Savageville, WA during the 1990’s.

While it may resonate and trigger some unpleasant past encounters and assumptions about you I really don’t think Lava was implying you are one of them, nor was she suggesting a blanket lesbian rational.
That said, I can see why bringing it up as an example to justify someone else’s assumed bias can be offensive.
This impression may be enhanced when the reference is first brought up to actually support your interpretation of Venn’s posts, then 20 posts later admitting she doesn’t get much of his writing and apparently doesn’t share your views re bias. 40 additional posts and the judge declares Venn’s innocence as he is the only one who knows his heart.

Hunter - can you explain the Milo Y support? I empathize with the pain, but I cannot abide the persistent shoutouts to arguably the most public gay mysogynist in our culture today. As a lesbian, I prefer woman, but I don’t publicly (or privately) support toxic lesbian voices.

Hey, everybody---the Lucky @150 and Lucky @169 are still up for grabs, too!! Wa-HOO!

It’s not just fifty yrs ago JibeHo. You got radical feminist super sepratist cis lesbians in London protesting trans women inclusion.. first by storming the Pride March no less, and now I read they want to start a Union. Their panic at including trans women sure seems driven to me.
I can understand a cis lesbian preferring only other cis lesbians in a romantic sense.. to storm a Pride March with their fears..points to some deep trauma in those women. If my theory rankles you, then why do you think these women carry such attitudes? Trans women are women too, end of story. If these cis lesbians weren’t blinded by some personal issues, they wouldn’t need to behave in such nasty ways.

I’m not even sure if the London women are all lesbians. Seems lots of cis straight women baulk at inclusion as well..when the wave of feminist upheaval was strongest there were conferences going on about sexual politics all the time. Cis women and trans women need to talk, get past all this negative energy and empathise with each other.

JibeHo, I think you are mischaracterizing LavaGirl.

That’s funny JibeHo, you asking the most sexist man on these threads about Mr Venn. Obviously you don’t attend to the comments that closely.

I’m not buying into how anyone is gay or straight, with my words here. It was the ferocity of the rejection of All men in any capacity near by too much, which jolted me.

Mr Venn, I think you’re cool. You pass my radar, and I don’t feel I need to be more alert. Like that line at the end of Some Like it Hot,
“ nobody’s perfect”

And did you see Mr Venn, how masked thugs smashed up a socialist bookshop in London. To attack books. British Bogans.

Am I nuts or did CMD have a response here that is now gone? I lost myself in work for a while, came by, saw CMD's response (or imagined it) and then got back to it. Now upon return before bed, Jibeho's is the last.

Well anyway, imaginations or not, JibeHo: I totally understand how you might take Lava's comments that way and why they would rub you the wrong way. No arguing with that except to say that I doubt that's what she was getting at given the context and prior conversation. As for Venn, I have noticed some misogyny as well, but I don't see it as much when he's pressed- it seems more a defense than anything and honestly I haven't bothered to dig into it as it seems more run of the mill and sympathetic than others and I don't know him in real life. I find his other insights more interesting. I totally understand why you would not, and I'm not saying you are wrong. If you drew a line in the sand, I'd likely be on your side, but without the forced choice, I enjoy engaging with and reading Venn. He only annoys me when he applies what he has learned from experience of female homophobia (which is a thing) to female experiences of patriarchy that have nothing to do with homophobia, which he seems to do rather a bit. At worst it seems that he eyerolls at women's experiences of patriarchy in a patriarchal way (silly women complaining about air conditioning) and the G erasure from what I can tell seems to be more about bi//trans people though admittedly as I have no dog in that fight I don't pay attention all that much- and in this post I'm only responding to say that I have no idea what any of this has to do with Lava's comments about separatist feminists nor your own feelings of yourself as persona non grata here.

As far as I can tell, which isn't much admittedly, if your main beef is with offensive and reductive explanations for complex personal and social identities and experiences, then I'm right there with you.

Weird. When I wrote the comment above, I could only see so far as @142. Though I remember earlier seeing CMD's subsequent response. Now I can see up to @153 hence my own response, so it's probably an issue with my own browser. Sorry.

BTW (and now again I can't see my most recent post) if Venn, Hunter or anyone else has defended Milo, that's a major red flag and I'll put myself in JibeHo's camp in condemnation. He is in fact a massive misogynist- and it still bothers me that this open misogyny on display in public national forums for several years is not what eventually brought him down. And yes, being gay does not prevent misogyny- there are plenty more where Milo came from. Another famous example is Peter Theil, cut from the same cloth but doesn't abuse boys so still in positions of power.

CMD @138: No, women aren't generally colder because we wear lighter clothes. Being colder is compounded by the fact that acceptable female office attire does not require a jacket, long pants, long sleeved shirt and a tie. It's ironic that the sex that requires more clothes to keep warm is encouraged to wear fewer! We are, in general, just naturally colder -- perhaps because we have less muscle mass? Or surface area, as Philo says? But women feeling the cold more than men is definitely a thing. Weight is a factor, as EmmaLiz says, but I've known men with practically no body fat at all who nevertheless warmed me up quite effectively, and some heavier women who complain that they're always cold.

Thanks for your contribution regarding trans women and sense of smell. I didn't want to accept Venn's appointment of myself as the expert (look what happened last time he appointed me an expert on something) on smell sensitivity per gender. If pushed to talk out of my ass on the topic, I'd have put it down to differences in socialisation -- it's acceptable for men to have body odour, as that indicates they may have just been engaging in manly pursuits such as chopping wood or fighting fires, but women must smell of flowers at all times and with all their body parts. Therefore, women may be more likely to consider body odor smells unpleasant, in themselves and others.

I'll agree that Venn's cryptic posts make me more likely to just scroll past them. Sorry Venn, but I think that is your intention, isn't it?

JibeHo @142: I think you misread LavaGirl as well. She was not saying having bad fathers causes women to become gay; she was linking bad fathers to avoidance and mistrust of men. "As a lesbian, I get that shit ALL the time." Aha, that explains why.

Lava @148: Transphobia seems to come from many quarters. The lesbian-specific spin on it seems to correspond to straight male "trans panic" -- the fear, or occasional reality, that the beautiful woman one has just met has a penis and has therefore compromised one's sexual orientation. The feminist-specific spin -- which is not the same thing as the lesbian-specific spin -- is that people who have not spent 100% of their lives experiencing female-based oppression have not "earned the right" to be in female-only spaces. (They miss the point that trans women HAVE experienced oppression of a different sort; they focus only on trans women's perceived male privilege at the time they were viewed as men.) I'm not sure if the lesbian-specific objection extends to trans women with vaginas, but I'm sure the radfem-specific objection does, so a trans woman is out of luck even after a full transition, legal gender change, etc.

Lava Girl says "Trans women are women too, end of story. " - Well no, it's not the end of the story. The debate hasn't even started. Too often the debate is forcefully shut down by motormouth bullies like you lava girl. Trans women are obviously men, since it's not possible to change sex. If people say trans women are women because trans women say they are women, well that isn't a good enough reason.

Biological reality is not bigotry. i'll repeat, it's not possible to change sex.

Too often in this furious discussion over trans I find myself, a gay man, open mouthed as two groups of men (trans-women & men) gang up on women, trying to bully women into allowing trans into their women only spaces. And heterosexual men who have transitioned into trans-women trying to bully dykes into having sex them, and calling the dykes who refuse to sleep with them, bigots should they baulk. This bullying is disgusting and must stop. Too often this bullying has degenerated into violence, which the trans have told themselves is justified, and is used against elderly feminist ladies- witness the burly male thugs in dresses who thumped a woman at hyde park, or the men in dresses holding base ball bats threatening to bash Terfs in the USA.

It's not far fetched to foresee the near future where the achievement of 50% male and female representation in politics and on company boards etc etc is destroyed if trans woman are counted as women. Already in the UK we have the absurd situation where trans women (ie men) represent women in various labour party positions around the country. THIS IS NOT PROGRESSIVE, is it reactionary and stepping several step backwards.

Then there are the athlete boys transitioning into trans women, competing in women's sports as women and beating the women by miles. THIS IS NOT PROGRESSIVE, is it reactionary and stepping several step backwards.

My position is that people can play dress up all they want, but trans men are not men and trans women are not women. Lava Girl, the issue most definitely NOT over. And, for what it's worth, I support the dykes on london pride who held their banners objecting to trans issues pushing aside lesbian issues.

Lava Perhaps if you had just said radical feminists instead of radical feminist lesbians, I wouldn't have had such a visceral reaction. As I said, I've experienced the stereotype that I must be a lesbian because my daddy probably abused me and I'm sorry, but that erases my agency and makes me a statistic rather than an individual. I apologize if I have mischaracterized your comments, but my reaction is borne from my experience. I'm sure you understand.

As for engaging with Hunter, I know how you and some others on this board feel about him. As I said, I've been reading SL for many years, and I have a good idea about all of the personalities that post comments here. It wasn't that long ago that you yourself had a rather public conversion to a more pro-trans pov. I'm glad for that.

Emma - most of Venn's pro Milo posting was before the election. When Trump won, he went radio silent for a very long time.

BDF- I think body heat and cold sensitivity has more to do with heart beat rate and circulation rather than gender. I'm freezing when the temperature drops below 60F, 15C, while my ex could go without any heat most of winters we lived together (yes, another point of contention.)

SoftPower
Wow, I'm speechless. "This (your) bullying is disgusting and must stop."

I'm having an Emma Liz moment. Few minutes ago SoftPower avatar was a drawing of an angry woman, which may explain (not justify) where she's coming from in her rant. (Being an ever suspicious person I thought the "I find myself, a gay man" to be fake.)
Apparently Softy read my mind and changed her avatar to a that of a toned man, an assumed gay man fantasy.
Softy- where do you stand on trans men, are they "real" or just generally less threatening to you?

Futher to the trans thing: I cannot stand by and watch society embrace anti-science, anti-logic, anti-morality, misogynist mental illness with a dubious interest in children and a fetish for victimhood as a new, progressive truth. It is the most toxic and potentially disastrous discourse in society today.

And finally, the one thing people need to realise about transwomen: less than 20% actually have gender dysphoria (classic transexuals). The majority have narcissistic autogynephilia, a paraphilic personality disorder. They're the ones dominating & shaping current trans ideology.


Every time so-called woke, liberal progressives repeat current trans ideology they're legitimising the views of men with a highly misogynist & potentially dangerous personality disorder (the no. 1 MH disorder of serial killers and rapists). They hate women & fetishise victimhood.

CMDwannabe you silly goose. I note like all trivial goosies who haven't a brain cell to rub together you refuse to address any of the points i make!

Every time some so-called woke, liberal progressives idiot like you repeats current trans ideology they're legitimising the views of men with a highly misogynist & potentially dangerous personality disorder (the no. 1 MH disorder of serial killers and rapists). They hate women & fetishise victimhood.

Ms. Soft, take 2- where do you stand on trans men, are they "real" or just generally less threatening?

I don't know CMD, anyone could be anyone online. But Soft Power's only other posts that I'm aware of were to talk about the joy of sucking smelly dick and sweaty balls as a European gay man, so that seems pretty consistent.

Side stepping his conversation above, I think it's another indication of the fact that TERF is a slur that applies to women. There is no male equivalent, even though there is obviously transphobia among men and even though men are the ones who murder trans people. This is because there is indeed misogyny among trans women just as there is misogyny among gay men, just as there is misogyny everywhere. The fact that there is misogyny among gay men and transwomen does not exclude the fact that there is likewise homophobia and transphobia among women. But in all of this bigotry and identity wars, I go back to the fact that there is a slur for women who are transphobic along with calls to punch them in the face, and there is no equivalent for men who are transphobic despite the fact that men actually kill trans people.

The reason I gave this background is that I find it odd that when a person who identifies as a gay man and who has only ever before posted about the joys of sucking sweating balls rants about trans people, you assume no, this must be a woman?

Maybe that's because there is not even a specific word for a male transphobe.

I disagree with most of what Soft Power has to say, but I am alarmed at the misogyny in the trans movement regarding the violently shutting down and destroying careers of people who ask what should be perfectly reasonable discussions about things like hormone treatment for children, when a person can self-identify as woman (without transition) and access women's spaces, and how this relates to transwomen in sports, whether or not we should exclude the word woman from discussions of reproductive health, etc. My own answers will differ from Soft Power's, but I am troubled by the fact that discussions about this at all are shut down with violence.

EmmaLiz, I responded to your question on the SLLOTD "Serious BDSM player"

EL- I also checked out softy’s history. Recent accounts with flamboyant comments often belong to trolls on the move from one account to another, most of them are assumed men.
Softy’s sweaty balls aroma post may qualify in this category, and identifying as a gay man may be a way to gain some credibility in this “liberal progressives idiot” crowd.

Their recent rants are all focused around trans women- all of them are total fake based on softy’s embrace of science, logic, morality and so on- who constantly attack cis women and are doomed to be serial killers because this is what softy saw in some movies and TV shows and it must be true.
Softy’s change of avatar was telling though there’s still a chance they are a man. Straight, terrified of trans women, and eager to protect otherwise helpless, vulnerable women who aren’t capable of speaking up for themselves.

As for TERF and other terms and why aren’t they also applied to men- I don’t have any personal experience in this regard and wasn’t even aware of “TERF” until it was brought up in here.
Among my own “liberal progressive idiot” crowd, as well as strangers I interact with in and around Savageville, my female persona is usually better accepted by women, cis and trans alike, as opposed to cis men and ambiguous characters like softy.

TERF is not exclusively a gendered term, unless 'feminist' is considered strictly the purview of the female sex. It's just an acronym for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. So yeah, however this softy person identifies, I'd consider them a TERF based on their language alone.

Sanguisuga, the E part seems to contradict that. I have never seen TERF online or in real life applied to a man. I have seen quite a bit of calling women TERFs who are not TE but who do try to have discussions like the ones I mentioned- it's become a slur that is used to shut down a conversation rather than a way to refer to actual trans exclusive feminists. So as the slur continues to lose its meaning and just becomes a catch all for transphobes, I suppose it might also start being applied to men. But the men who murder transwomen and who are themselves transphobes are hardly radical feminists nor do they go around advocating for women-only safe spaces, so I don't see how we can pretend this slur is not gendered both in original intent and current usage.

CMD likewise my real life experience with transwomen has been overwhelmingly neutral to positive, and as most of them have been women I've met in activist spaces, they are usually also feminists and advocates for both LGBT rights and reproductive rights, etc. I have had a couple negative run-ins with transwomen as well, including one who threatened to personally take out any men or women who disagreed with her on a particular issue, but the issue was not over anything to do with trans rights so I can dish her up to generally being an asshole in no way particular to her gender. But I do think we shouldn't hand wave some of these other questions, and I do have very well meaning liberal friends with a tom boy daughter who they are overly supportive in declaring their acceptance of her potential trans status should she start calling herself a boy, and as she is not yet in kindergarten, it does bother me as a feminist- why this little girl who likes trucks and ninjas is said to be into boy things?

I suspect that your supportive social networks have more to do with your own personality and thoughtfulness and choice of friends than it does of the response of cis women more generally. I'm not ever arguing with Venn or anyone else that plenty of women are in fact transphobes or homophobes or racist or whatever -ism that applies to both men and women. I'm just troubled by the particularly misogynist and anti-feminist nature of the near exclusive focus on women as regards transphobia.

Either way, you could be right about Softy of course.

You’re right EmmaLiz. Discussion is needed. Not in a negative way, as that gets nowhere except more separation. Not an issue I have to deal with a lot living in a semi rural area. I know one trans woman and one trans man. And both those people don’t sprout any dogma, they both want to be acknowledged as they are, and they are kind and good people.

Soft @158: I don't care how often you repeat yourself, you're still wrong. You're a bigot and fortunately, people like you are part of an ever smaller minority. As a self-identified gay man, what horse do you have in the race to determine who is a woman and who is not? Go back to your Free Tommy Robinson march.

Hunter @163: For what it's worth, I would dispute your title as Most Sexist Man, as I believe Sportlandia is entitled to that award. Or is it Dadddy? Then we have Soft, a new entrant who seems to want to out-sexist everyone.

EmmaLiz @167: TERF is not a slur. Nor, as Sanguisaga said, is it female-exclusive. People of all genders can (and should) be feminists. TERF refers to transphobia masquerading as feminism. Softy, whatever their gender, seems to qualify. TERFs get a worse name (than "transphobe") because anyone describing themself as a feminist should be held to a higher standard of support for gender equality. Male transphobes tend to also be misogynists. They just want everyone who isn't a straight man to remain oppressed.
However, it's not the E but the R that means nearly all TERFs are indeed female. Feminists believe in gender equality. -Radical- feminists believe in female superiority. Few men support this -- outside of the kink context, of course.

JibeHo,
Thanks for explaining, I didn't get where you were coming from at first. The most extreme separatists ime are bi people who got burned by the opposite gender and started exclusively dating same gender. So I would also think they don't have a whole lot in common with gay-from-birth, they are more WGTOW than lesbian. And yeah MD looking for DC venues, thanks for replying.

I like Lava's message that cis and trans women should lobby together instead of exclude and punch each other, and the anti separatist stance. Bundles of twigs and tolerance and all that.

Biological sex can't be changed. Gender is not sex. I don't see who is harmed by allowing people choice of gender. We've never gendered perfectly with sex anyway there's always been chromosome abnormalities etc. I don't think sex should be changed, on drivers license etc. Because I do think there's a problem when transwomen compete in gendered arenas against cis women. Including politics. I would like to see ~50% of politicians have a vested interest in abortion rights like ~50% of the population does. I don't think there should be stigma if one chooses a gender different from one's sex. Or nb or androgynous or whatever preference.

And no one should be bullied into dating anyone else.

@BDF I don't know enough about the theories behind different trends in feminism, but the (albeit) very small amount of online reading I did on radical feminism, I came up with two main things- one being feminists who are anticapitalist (which has nothing whatsoever to do with transphobia) and the other being feminists who are gender critical (who believe that gender was created as a cultural response to biology and that it is not an inherent thing in and of itself). By both definitions (insofar as I understand these labels which is not much), I am a radical feminist. I did not see anything that is about female superiority in radical feminism in general, though of course there are radical feminists who do believe in such things, the most famous example being the woman who shot Andy Warhol, etc.

I am not, however, trans exclusive, which as far as I can tell means that people believe that trans people should be excluded from the spaces of their identified gender or that women's events should be open only to cis women etc. I have no problem with inclusion of transwomen and my real world experience of this, as I stated above, has been neutral to positive.

And while TERF does have a specific definition, it is generally now used as a slur to refer to any women who say anything that is outside the accepted liberal trans view of trans people- it's a way to shut down a conversation. It is now a slur- that doesn't mean there aren't really TERFs, but that many of the people getting called TERFs are not TERFs.

Yet again, while in theory a TERF could be a man, this is not a descriptor used for transphobic men as they are not feminists, radical or not. Transphobic men who attack transwomen and uphold policies that harm them are never called TERFs for that reason. Which is understandable, but I find it odd that there is not a similar label for them. Nor are there transwomen marching with baseball bats threatening to beat up transphobic men.

For example there was a row a year back or so in which a female doctor writing about hormone treatment in children and detransitioning statistics was attacked (verbally and online not in real life as far as I know) by trans activists who called her a TERF. This is before this controversy was on my radar so I did not have the context to understand it, but I know about it because Dan posted in defense of this woman. I read her blog for a while and moved on. This has been on my mind a lot more lately since there are all these threats of violence against TERFs- let's be clear that we are talking about male-bodied women carrying baseball bats and threatening to beat up women who they consider TERFs, which apparently includes doctors writing about hormone therapy and radical feminists who believe that gender is entirely culturally created. This bothers me immensely.

Philo @175: You don't think that straight men have a vested interest in abortion rights? I certainly do.
Trans folk are a tiny percentage of the population. I don't think recognising trans women as women is going to substantially affect gender balances in politics, boardrooms, etc.

Emma @176: I agree that people use the term TERF to refer to transphobes without evidence that the transphobe in question has identified themself as a radical feminist, or as a feminist. Good point that I don't see threats of violence against male transphobes. Those who would threaten violence should perhaps pick on someone their own size? All I can think of is that, again, TERFs are committing two crimes, one being bigotry itself, and the other being giving feminists and feminism a bad name. I really do wish trans women, as justified as their anger is, would stop shooting themselves in the foot by threatening violence. This isn't just wrong but it is an extremely masculine reaction, which lends credence to the bigots' position.

BDF - I’m with Philo re abortion. Non-uterus havers simply cannot possess an equivalent interest in the reproductive freedom of women that uterus havers do.

I’m not a TERF. I have no problem with trans men or women in gay and lesbian spaces. In fact I admire them and have their back. Having said that, I do appreciate the nuances that EmmaLiz has articulated.

I recall the last time I tried commenting a couple of years ago it was to express my preference to not date bi or trans women. All hell broke loose and I was labeled a bigot. That’s when I went from avid reader/occasional commenter to avid reader only...

Just did some research on the TERF wars and found it to be quite depressing. It almost looks as if some outsiders who hate feminists and/or trans are stirring it all up in order to divide the camp and give everyone a bad reputation. I’m not saying this is what’s happening, only suggesting that such skirmishes give those who hate one or both groups tons of sensational ammunition, ignoring the majorities that co-exist peacefully.
I hope trans folks of any shade will join the discussion and give us their perspective.

WOW--major congrats are in order! First, to @150 LavaGirl, for hitting the Lucky @150 Award and to @169 CMDwannabe for scoring the coveted Lucky @69+ Hunsky Award! May an abundance of riches shower upon the two of you in a most welcoming cascade (CMD, do I still owe you a beer---not to be confused with a "golden shower"?).

Yikes--how did a heated debate over Most Sexist Man Here get started? For the record, when it comes to abortion rights, I am siding with the non-penis havers. Men have absolutely no idea what goes on during a nine month pregnancy, never will because they won't experience it, and therefore, they should leave the decisions of when to bear--or not--up to us gals. Period. 'Nuff said. Watch out, usual sexist commenters---I say the damnedest things when my back is up.

Okay--who's game for a Two Hunsky?

Yes, #169 is indeed mine, though as one can assume from my post on the recent ICYMI daily letter I’m willing to trade.
Doggy either end OBO.

@183 CMD: Again, congrats--the highly sought after Lucky @169 victory is indeed yours. Are you still up for a beer?

CMD that is certainly possible. The way fundamentalism spreads is by forcing people to take personally differences that could normally be irrelevant if we'd all live and let live, and the way they do this is by making those differences relevant to your own life so that you must take a choice. If I did not have real life experience with transwomen that was mostly positive and included plenty of transwomen feminists who advocated for civil rights and reproductive freedoms, then I'm sure that just an online (not real life) understanding of the situation would make me take a more fundamentalist stance. As it is, I can see that the enemies of transwomen are my enemy as well and that if we come together in solidarity we are both better off for it, plus most of the transwomen I've met have just been regular people who want to live their life in peace. But this is not the impression I'd have from online discussions.

Re: reproductive rights, absolutely someone without a uterus can never understand it in the same way. This seems obvious to me. Just like I can't understand the experience of being black or trans or any other experience that is not my own. Our own gender queer poster with whom I frequently buttheads recently mansplained to me how there aren't really biological realties around reproduction that affect gender any more now other than a few biological differences that are gone within a week of giving birth and even nursing is no longer a big deal since there is formula so the reality of reproduction is not irrelevant to gender. This in a conversation in which I pointed out that the maternal mortality rate in Texas is now higher than any other place in the developed world. Not to mention the very real week by week reality of spending decades learning to manage pregnancy prevention, etc, that hardly crosses men's minds by comparison, regardless of how vigilante they might be. I agree with BDF that men have a vested interest in reproductive rights. But I agree also with Griz, Jibe Ho and Philo that this will absolutely never feel the same way to someone without a uterus- they can't really understand what it is like. The solutions and possibilities and consequences all seem much simpler to someone who does not actually have to manage them for decades.

("now" irrelevant to gender, that should say, not "not") OK folks, been grand, I'll be out of town for a week, doggy and not 69 any day.

@185 EmmaLiz: "This in a conversation in which I pointed out that the maternal mortality rate in Texas is now higher than anywhere else in the developed world."
Blood-red white male Republican-legislated Texas sounds like a clearly horrible and frightening place to be a cis woman, regardless of political affiliation.

Auntie Griz, especially if you are a poor woman of color. Honestly I think the antiabortion agenda and anti health care agenda is an outgrowth of white supremacy. Honestly. I don't think I'm being a conspiracy theorist about this. Wealthier women will always have access to all health care, regardless of how much the GOP guts the public sector and restricts women's rights. It's poor women who are suffering and dying and staying in generational poverty - which is strongly correlated with motherhood among poor women. And in Texas as in other places in the country, it is Latina and Black women who are overrepresented among the poor and among those not receiving health care adequately. I used to just think this was a matter of class warfare and religious patriarchy, but with the rise in nazism and the like and all the extreme hatred on display under Trump etc, I've started to actually believe that it's a matter of white supremacy. These are the same people worried about the white genocide- those nazis marching around Charlottesville last year chanted "you will not replace us" about people of color. To me, this makes the most sense as to why GOP is OK with the levels of maternal mortality around black and Latina women in Texas (as elsewhere). It's the same reason they are OK letting thousands of brown migrants die in the desert and stealing children from parents they deport and why in recent history they have forced sterilization among black people and Central Americans. There's a long history of white elites controlling the reproduction of black women in this country, obviously. And black women who defend themselves against their male abusers- even those against whom they have a restraining order- are likelier to go to prison for it than white women.

It takes my breath away to really consider this, but I think the antichoice and anti health care stance of the GOP is one part Evangelical fundamentalism, one part misogyny and many parts white supremacy. Health care for women in Texas is a great microcosm for this mix.

But seriously I'm running late and should stop rambling.

@179, JibeHo.. yes, I’ve been ferociously attacked for my /evolving and learning/ positions on trans women on these threads. And there you go, still needing to clear a path for cis women to have a choice re their romantic lives.
A few yrs ago was all the ruckus about a women’s music festival.. been going for a long time. I saw no issue and still don’t for that festival to be for cis women only for some of the time then have the last days including trans women.
And EmmaLiz is correct, cis women’s concerns are being trampled on. The States is up there with the no of deaths of birthing women. Seriously, wtf in this day and age. Birthing has been reduced to what is easiest. A woman should Never lie on her back to birth. It’s like the one or two women
a week murdered by their ex or present partners, just another ..oh how tragic is this..then nothing.
Trans activists need to see this is not some sort of game, cis women need their support too as they demand it for themselves. Like any relationship, it’s a two way street.
And glad Fan mentioned it first, because it’s glaring. Some trans women use tactics which are very in keeping with their birth sex. They can’t have it both ways. Cis women on the whole have different ways to deal with issues, more tactical than physical.

Jibe/Griz: To clarify, I didn't mean that men should have the right to curtail abortion rights. Absolutely not! I just meant that they, too, benefit from women's right to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

CMD @180: I can absolutely see transphobes posing as trans women and threatening TERFs in order to legitimise hatred of trans women. The internet's anonymity has had some dark consequences. I'm happy I never joined Twitter, that place just seems like a seething cesspool of hatred.

BDF,
I don't mean to say we don't have allies in cis men or trans women but that they will never have the same intrinsic concerns about abortion rights. Or maternal death rate (a few years ago it was just Texas now it's the US I read last month) or birth control biological mechanisms or sex controlled medical research (although they have more vested interest in this than cis men). I would like the Olympics to continue to represent the extreme fitness of xx and xy biology separately. I see no problem with trans people in politics unless I don't know that their biological concerns are different from their chosen gender. I see no reason to exclude trans people from gendered spaces but I also expect them to disclose their transition when speaking publicly as their chosen gender, in art, in sports, in politics (trans men would get the women's health vote over cis men), and of course they should generally disclose in a medical context. Trans people are important and worthy of their own well respected place in gender, but they will never have the biology of a cis woman, or the same gendered socialization in childhood. I don't think acknowledging this takes away from the bold pioneer trans people who deserve their own celebration and medical studies about their particular biological concerns and their right to be treated with respect as their chosen gender.

JibeHo,
I don't think people should be bullied into dating others, but it's also usually rude to talk about the classes of people you refuse to date. I don't really remember the context idk. Glad to see you again anyway.

We as a nation are comfortable because we are predatory. I would love to see a self sufficient happy USA. Until then I predict there will always be sensational minority struggles to distract those who unwillingly support the 1% in order to sustain this status quo.

Was the SLOTTD installment of letter 1 the only time the entire SL commentariat was in accord? It might have been.

Humans have been using soap for around 4,800 years, and Germanic tribes were more likely to use it to clean themselves than the Romans (who apparently dissolved fat-soluble deposits and particulates in oil with which they covered themselves and scraped it off to clean their skin) during the Roman period, so German Boyfriend really has no excuse. That said, GAGGING may ALSO want to see if he's actually cleaning out the smegma from under his foreskin - if he's washing with soap but not retracting the foreskin to clean out all of the oil, skin cells, particulates, and bacteria that build up, it's still going to smell bad, and if he WERE doing this with water every day or two, I also wouldn't expect it to be THAT bad. Except for people suffering phimosis (which is treatable with creams and stretching in mild cases or surgery i.e circumcision; it should be treated becasue it can cause problems other than smelly smegma, including more serious infections, tearing of the foreskin if it's unintentionally forced to retract, or loss of circulation and eventual necrosis of the head of the penis if it's forced to retract without tearing and then can't slide back into its usual position - this last one is technically paraphimosis), the foreskin should easily retract, allowing easy cleaning.

Reading a few more comments, I now suspect that there are people who intentionally don't clean their penises well, so maybe that's the problem here. Set a boundary and then hold that boundary, GAGGING.

@8: I literally have difficulty believing the kinds of shit that women will and do put up with from sexual partners. Other people, too, but it definitely seems that women are overall more willing to put up with bullshit. And when I say literally, I mean it: despite firsthand observation and secondhand retelling, I question whether it's happening, and constantly seek some mitigating/justifying reason. I have to remind myself how strongly many people internalize social norms, such that "I'm supposed to do X," means they will actually do X, even when X is awful.

@25: One shouldn't use soap IN one's vagina, but it's fine for the vulva (that's the mons pubis, labia majora and minora, vulval vestibule, clitoral prepuce, and glans clitoris; soap could irritate the membranes is it's too harsh, so "mild soap" is usually the recommendation). It's not universally necessary - washing with water can be fine, which is also the case for cleaning under the penile prepuce.

@82: Please don't make me link the stomach-turning discussions of the men who never learned (or refuse) to wipe their own asses. But do Google them, then despair for humanity.

@86: Routine circumcision - of boys AND girls - began in the US as a "health" practice, but not regarding infection. It was an anti-masturbation practice, part of a cultural panic around masturbation, which some quacks (like Dr. Kellogg of the cereal fame - breakfast cereals were invented because they thought that bland food would temper people's lust) believed was responsible for numerous physical and psychological developmental abnormalities as well as low energy/vitality in developmentally typical adults. Female circumcision involved either removal of the glans clitoris or burning it with acid, while male circumcision involved removing the penile prepuce. Female circumcision eventually lost favor as the sex panic subsided, while the actual lower rates of infection among circumcised men in conditions where routine hygiene wasn't possible provided a justification (rationalization?) for the routine practice to continue. In most contexts in industrialized countries there is no longer any health benefit to penile circumcision, so I advocate for letting people make their own decisions about which bits are cut off of their bodies, if any.

SoftPower, "woman" is not biology, it's sociology. "Female" would be the normative equivalent for biological gender, but that also is not fixed, especially depending on what you're using as a metric. I came up with seven different ways we contextually determine sex/biological gender one time, let me see if I can remember off the top of my head: chromosomes; hormone levels; genital configuration; gamete production; 'secondary' sex characteristic configuration like body hair coverage/type, breasts, etc.; social assignation - how other people interpret you; and self-assignation - how you interpret yourself. The social determinants are based on a false assumption of social and biological gender congruence, but they are also far and away the most common form used, as most people determine others to be male or female without measuring hormone levels, sequencing DNA, or inspecting someone's genitals; 'secondary' sex characteristics tend to be more publicly visible. All of the biological elements except for a few features of developmental morphology (bone development, for example, which is sexually dimorphic) and gamete production can be altered (though gene therapy for altering DNA tends to be limited in effectiveness); biology actually can be changed to a large extent. Even without medical intervention, all of these elements are not necessarily "in agreement" for any given person, largely becasue biological gender/sex is not actually binary, but a collection of spectra for different features with relatively biased clustering near two particular peak points on each spectrum, which we happen to divide into a binary.

That said, I do tend to object to the simplistic framing of assertions like "trans women are women" for very different reasons - gender is a social construction, and is thus socially mediated, so X is only in the category "woman" if society normatively determines that to be so. What people ACTUALLY mean when they make that assertion is, "Trans women should be normatively considered women by our society," but framing that demand accurately as a demand to alter our social norms rather than framing it as a foregone essential conclusion is less politically powerful in a society that embraces essentialism, so it's not framed that way (and in many cases probably not understood that way, becasue lots of trans people believe in gender essentialism).

But since I already blew up one community arguing about trans gender essentialism (well, I'm partly responsible, though it certainly wasn't me alone), I'm going to avoid saying any more on the matter here, in this thread anyway.

@EmmaLiz: Your understanding of radical feminism is better than most people's, including those who self-identify as radical feminists (and the people who hate them). "Radical" only ever had the plain meaning - changing the entire structure of a system or dismantling it entirely rather than reforming the present system, in this case the gender system and interrelated social systems (hence anticapitalist feminists). In general, radical feminists seek to eliminate gender as a social system entirely, though some groups, like radical lesbian separatists (who are indeed the exact inverse of and inspiration for MGTOW, as noted earlier), sought (seek?) to keep gender but fundamentally change the way it works as a social system (in the RLS case, literally set up parallel separate societies - this isn't without precedent, as there have been groups of humans who lived mostly gender segregated lives, usually with boys living with the women and girls until adolescence, only meeting for periods determined for procreation).

@188 EmmaLlz: How truly sad about Texas. Like I had feared, that's truly horrible.
I keep hearing Susan Sarandon saying to Geena Davis as they wait for a train to cross in Thelma & Louise: "Look--you shoot off a guy's head with his pants down, believe me, Texas isn't the place you want to get caught."
@190 BiDanFan: No worries. I immediately saw the unplanned pregnancy factor in your comment as to where a lot of men and women see eye to eye.