GC: Why is a constructed penis from tissues or stem cells that looks and feels like a real penis and is as functional as a real penis still not a real penis? What makes the constructed/artificial different from the actual thing when both look and feel the same?

Catbug · 2020-10-29T07:05:25+00:00

Have a look at a neo penis and then try to ask this with a straight face.

worried19 · 2020-10-29T04:09:53+00:00

We're heading into science fiction territory, but even if surgery could create a realistic, fully functional penis substitute, it would still be an artificial construction, not an organic penis.

I personally don't care what people have under their clothes. It's no concern of mine if adults want to have elective genital surgeries. I would just object to the idea that anyone should be pressured or shamed into interacting with those genitals in a sexual context.

loveSloane · 2020-10-29T06:52:56+00:00

Gathering the answer to your post but side question: Is your username meant to be ironic?

MezozoicGay · 2020-10-29T10:56:29+00:00

It would not be functional for transmen anyways, as body just was not created to support one, and for men it will be just a replacement surgery/transplantant.

peakingatthemoment · 2020-10-29T14:52:43+00:00

I don’t think that’s real. I don’t know that much about those surgeries, but I don’t think it comes out the same and we can’t create genitals from stem cells yet. For an FTM, wouldn’t their body not have the proper other things to make the penis behave like a man’s does?

adungitit · 2020-10-29T15:06:43+00:00

People find it relevant to make a difference between the real thing and an artificial one. A man who'd lost a penis and had an artificial one put on him does not have a real penis. And constructed meat made in a lab isn't seen as "real" meat. I feel this shouldn't be controversial to say, but you seem to disagree?

The realistic neopenis is like the dysfunctional/non-functional penis of a man that can no longer function at all.

This falls into the same old trap of mistaking malfunctioning biology or reconstructed biology with biology that doesn't exist in the first place because the basic conditions for its existence are simply not present, as it's not a part of said person's healthy developed body and in fact, goes contrary to it. A man who's damaged his penis needs to have it reconstructed because that was his actual biology and he is reconstructing a real thing that he had. A man who doesn't produce sperm has still developed a penis because he is male and he isn't a woman just because something in his development was off. A woman who doesn't have a penis is instead a completely normal woman with her actual normally developed genitalia that she has to remove in order to replace them with something entirely artificial. Like she might as well put an ear on her groin and have as much biological basis for doing that as having an artificial penis in that place. People have the capacity to recognise that things are not real just because they seem real on the surface and this plays into their impressions.

emptiedriver · 2020-10-29T08:42:21+00:00

If if if... At the moment most GC people are concerned about keeping the distinction clear between people who have literally had no surgery at all and often not even taken hormones, and the natal sex they are trying to impersonate. Some people take hormones, but that can be on and off, or shifted in dosage for medical reasons. A portion of people have had "top surgery" and there are those who get other plastic surgeries for cosmetic reasons.
Then a small percentage of people have "bottom surgery" as well.

To me, if there were a very clear line and no one who had not gone through all the medical procedures was considered to have transitioned, then I would be flexible about accepting people who did have all the medical procedures into various scenarios where they would be understood as the sex they had transitioned to. Plastic surgery genitalia is obviously not the same as natal genitalia, but it is a significant life choice that only a small number of people will undertake and in plenty of cases can probably provide people with a kind of honorary membership.

I don't see anything as automatic, and there are still issues where I don't see a compromise working out, but medically transitioned people are a different category to me than the pure identity politics that dominates now.

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