Question for GC: Can you explain why a neopenis/phalloplasty is not a penis? If a man is something with a penis, then if a man removes all of his genitals in surgery, why will he still remain a man after surgery?

submitted by GarageCar from self.GenderCritical

[removed]
all 12 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]Bogos 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Because every cell in a persons body is either XX or XY and this determines gene expression (And Therefore physiology) from embryonic stage onward. How is this even an issue? Because health class is not being taught? Women don’t have prostrates. Women don’t have testes, etc etc etc. if a trans men were to get sick they would need to factor in her biological sex for all Kinds of reasons. Are you trolling? Please pick up a human sexual reproduction book and then get back to us.

[–]MarkTwainiac 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

And if a man is something with a penis, then imagine that a man removes all of his genitals in surgery, why will he still remain a man after surgery?

But that's not the definition of a man! That's a porn addict's or small child's definition of a man. No one who understands "the facts of life," has taken a basic biology course, or has ever looked in a dictionary would agree that with that definition.

A man is an adult human male. Male is the category of sexually reproducing animals and plants that have evolved to produce and are meant to produce small gametes. From the moment of conception, male humans have the SRY gene, usually located on the Y chromosome, that causes them to develop the anatomy for producing male gametes - which in mammals and other sexually reproducing animals is known as sperm.

Depending on which of the two gametes a human body is meant and programmed to produce, the rest of the body will develop differently to bodies of the opposite sex in myriad other ways as well. These differences will become most evident during and after puberty, but they will start in utero and will be evident and measurable in the first days, weeks and months following birth. Possibly due to experiencing pubertal levels of testosterone in the "mini puberty" that occurs in the first few months of life, male babies have been proven to grow faster than females... And from the start male human babies will have faster muscle twitch fibers, different responses to sensory stimulation, and larger hearts and lungs than females of the exact same size, causing the males to have higher blood oxygenation.

Regarding your question about whether a man still remains a man after he's had all his genitals removed in surgery: the answer is YES.

In the late 1970s when working as a newspaper reporter, I did a story about injured Vietnam vets who'd managed to survive severe blasts to the lower body that caused them to have "extreme amputations," meaning they had no legs or groin anymore (one was amputated at the waist). Later, I did work with Cambodian males who survived the killing fields but had stepped on landmines escaping or rescuing others, sustaining severe leg and groin injuries in the process. None of these men had their genitals any more, and they would be profoundly insulted by the allegation this somehow meant they are no longer men.

Whether you meant this or not, the suggestion that a man= penis or penis+balls seems based on a pretty cavalier and callous attitude towards persons with disabling injuries and diseases affecting the groin and genitals, as well as shocking ignorance of what goes on the world and the kinds of hardships that many human beings endure in life. The fact is, due to modern warfare as well as the widespread use of explosives in acts of terrorism - and also to such factors as major industrial and auto and other transport accidents - there are tens of thousands of men around the world at this very moment who've lost their penises and/or balls due to injuries. This has been the case for a very long time now. FFS, Hemingway wrote a novel about it 100 years ago.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Since at last count, biologists had documented more than 6,000 physiological differences between male and female humans, I don't buy the argument that what defines male or female, and what distinguishes one from the other, is simply the presence and partial function of the external genitalia. Nor do I buy your argument that a surgical creation that somewhat resembles a penis in visual appearance and with mechanical assistance might be able to mimic the some of the behaviors of a penis is actuall a penis. And I certainly don't buy the preposterous claim that because sometimes a faux phallus made out of female arm skin have been or can be connected to some nerves in a female pelvis this means a female with a surgically-created faux phallus "can feel things like how a non-trans man feels things through his penis."

But if for the sake of argument I were for a moment to accept your premise that one and only one male organ is reflective and determinative of a man' sex, then I'd argue that you're focusing on the wrong organ. Because as it so happens, the testes are way more important than the penis in male sexual reproduction - and reproduction is the whole reason why sex exists in the first place.

After all, it's the testes that produce the male gametes; the penis is only a delivery vehicle for the male gametes.

What's more, the testes are the organ that produce the bulk of male sex hormone testosterone that causes male bodies to develop in such distinctly male ways. In other words, the testes play the central role in male sex in two crucial ways; by comparison, the penis is ancillary.

In the modern era of medically-assisted reproduction, it's possible for males to father children with sperm extracted directly from their testes. Men with total erectile dysfunction, micro-penises too small to inseminate through penetrative PIV sex, certain DSDs, and penis damage or amputations due to disease or injuries have done exactly that. Even males with DSDs that often cause the most serious malformations of the external genitals, including the apparent absence of a penis at birth and undescended or wholly internal testicles, such as 5-ARD - the male-only DSD that Caster Semenya has - can produce viable sperm from their testes.

[–]GarageCar[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you Mark, by the way it's good to see you again. I remember you from the GenderCritical subreddit, I was only lurking a few times in there and we didn't really interact but the way you write just makes things click for some reason. Also the handle MarkTwainiac just can't be forgotten because, who can just forget the name Mark Twain, I definitely can't

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You say that in women who've had faux phalluses constructed from skin taken from their arms:

Production of precum is anecdotal but possible due to the skene’s glands/prostate in their bodies.

This suggests you think male "precum" is produced by the prostate, the male counterpart of the female Skene's gland. Not true. Male "precum" is produced by the male bulbourethral or Cowper's glands and Glands of Littre that are located at the base of penis and open up to the male urethra.

Cowper's glands and the Glands of Littre are entirely different to the prostate gland. Their female counterparts are the Bartholin glands, which are located on either side of the vaginal opening.

Also, male "precum" is a constituent part of male seminal fluid. Scientists have shown that in a majority of cases, the preliminary form of seminal fluid produced prior to ejaculation that you call "precum" - a term that medical professionals and sex educators eschew and warn against using - contains viable, motile sperm. No secretions made by a female body contain sperm, not even trace amounts or weak forms of sperm.

Moreover, all male ejaculate - "precum" and full-fledged seminal fluid - travels through and comes out the urethra, located inside the penis. And one of the functions of male "pre-cum" is to neutralize acidity created by urine in the male urethra so as to clear the way, and make a more hospitable environment, for the passage of sperm. Whereas in females, the urethra is entirely separate to the vagina. Yes, the vagina is normally relatively acidic, but that's due to the special flora of the vagina dominated by Lactobacillus. It's not because urine comes from and gets left inside the vagina as routinely happens with the penis due to the nature of male anatomy.

In any event, the fluid males produce known in imprecise parlance as "precum" is not the same as the vaginal secretions that come from the female Bartholins glands or the Skene's gland. The secretions produced by these female glands have been shown to contain a number of components also found in or similar to male pre-ejaculate and full-fledged seminal fluid, but the female secretions have also been found to be different in many ways.

For example, female vaginal secretions have been shown to have all sorts of immunological and antimicrobial properties. Though the female Skene's glands secretions are produced upon sexual arousal, even they apparently do more than provide lubrication that from an evolutionary POV probably developed to make PIV het sex easier and more pleasurable for females, thus providing het females with an incentive to engage in PIV sex more, leading to more reproduction of the human being - the goal of all species.

The fluid produced by female Skene's glands also contains distinct antimicrobial compounds and such elements as zinc that apparently are not found in any male secretions. This has led some scientists to speculate that one of the reasons female humans evolved to produce this fluid is because it protects us from infection, particularly UTIs/cystitis associated with or triggered by PIV sex.

[–]DogeWalker 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Hypothetically, let's say I lost an eyeball in a tragic basketweaving accident.

Doctors offer to create a replacement eyeball for me, using soft tissue from my forearm.

My replacement eyeball is literally an eyeball. Do you agree, OP?

[–]GarageCar[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That's a very good analogy walker, this is where my issue begins, if you lost your eye in a tragic accident, and the doctors took the tissue from your forearm and made a neoeye that looks exactly like an eye, can not see things but has nerves enough you can feel things with it, how is the neoeye different from the eye of a completely blind human who just can't see anything with it and what makes the neoeye not an eye? Because the eye of a completely blind human can not see things, but is still an eye, if we pluck that out and put it in a jar, it's still an eye. Why is the neoeye created from the tissue of the forearm, etc any different from the plucked out eye of a blind human that can not function as much as the neoeye can not function?

[–]DogeWalker 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

My response can be found in the identical thread at s/GCdebatesQT .