all 27 comments

[–]ZveroboyAlinaclownfish is a clown or a fish? || Febfem 41 insightful - 27 fun41 insightful - 26 fun42 insightful - 27 fun -  (1 child)

His thought process:

  1. "I am bisexual man"

  2. "I need some advice from bisexual man"

  3. "Where can I find the most bisexual men?"

  4. "Actual Lesbians of course"

So he did everything correct.

[–]reluctant_commenter 11 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah honestly that checks out... some of the most realistic and straightforward thinking I've seen on AL, anyway. Lol.

[–]reluctant_commenter 36 insightful - 10 fun36 insightful - 9 fun37 insightful - 10 fun -  (0 children)

I mean at least he is honest, unlike the self-described "transbian" men.

The bar is so low, lol.

[–]Seahorse 28 insightful - 13 fun28 insightful - 12 fun29 insightful - 13 fun -  (2 children)

"And I think I might be a nymphomaniac but that's not important" EXCUSE ME WTF?!

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 21 insightful - 6 fun21 insightful - 5 fun22 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

I really didn't think people even used that word anymore. It became like a meme in the 90's to the point where my English teacher got so fed up with boys going "durr-hurr nymphomaniac" that he told us nymphomaniac is only to refer to women and taught us the male version of the word "satyromaniac" which... Somehow murdered the joke for all of us. The boys didn't want to call themselves a girl-word anymore, but the boy-word was too weird so they didn't want to say that either, so it just kind of fizzled away. (So.... Good job, teacher!)

[–]just_lesbian_things 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Lol, nothing to kill the buzz like an English teacher. I need to learn this skill to get rid of all the gross men trying to get off in lesbian spaces. If only these men were as reluctant to call themselves girl-words.

[–][deleted] 30 insightful - 3 fun30 insightful - 2 fun31 insightful - 3 fun -  (14 children)

This person needs a legitimate adult to talk to, but instead is going to take advice from the Internet. Gonna take a stab at it. Wish me luck. Internet adult, and all.

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 33 insightful - 2 fun33 insightful - 1 fun34 insightful - 2 fun -  (12 children)

Tell him to stop watching porn. Also be careful, an adult talking to an under-18 person on the internet about sex can go the wrong way very quickly (unless convincing the child they are a transgender egg, of course.)

[–][deleted] 25 insightful - 1 fun25 insightful - 0 fun26 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Stab taken. Encouraged them to seek out a trusted person, such as a psychotherapist to explore these topics with, rather than strangers on the Internet. Alluded to, but not specified. A meta-discussion.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Tell him to stop watching porn.

We can absolutely have a conversation about how that material is produced. We'll probably get identical traction on the subject.

However.

Framing pornography consumption as a subversive addiction is harmful, and here's why:

  • Nothing in sex research supports that conclusion--that pornography consumption per se is harmful.

  • Addiction, recovery, and relapse:

These are the prima facie criteria that keep people in distress. The sort of things that can create whole industries?

You hear about these people in the news, who have a "sex addiction." They don't. They have a perfectly normal sex drive. They however have done something incompatible with society's well-intentioned norms, and want to blame it on "addiction." They want to abdicate that responsibility.

Social conservatives love this. It's the cycle of shame and guilt. This kind of thought gives porn a magical quality, that it really can, deep-down, influence somebody's sexuality.

Hell. You've heard of recruitment? The socially-constructed aspect of homosexuality? That gay men can recruit perfectly normal men into a homosexual lifestyle? Well if it's so damn persuasive, sign me up! Sounds like a good time. Weird fun is still fun, after all.

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 28 insightful - 1 fun28 insightful - 0 fun29 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I think you assumed a completely different reason for me saying "Tell him to stop watching porn." than my actual reason, which is that I believe many of these teenagers end up thinking they are gay men/transbian is because they are watching too much lesbian porn, anime porn, and for the FTMs, yaoi porn and comics. There is also the sissy porn which AGP themselves accredit for encouraging them to become like this. I don't know if that's popular with teens though.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Text-only medium. Sorry, I'm fired up and hot-headed tonight. Isn't that why we're here? I see you. This would be best in-person. My apologies.

Okay, let me look at this. Deep breath.

Teenagers thinking they're trans because they're watching too much porn? No, I don't think so. If I recall correctly, a fairly prolific commentator here said that no matter how much heterosexual porn they watched, there was no way that was going to straighten them out. If heterosexual porn can't straighten us out, how can we expect the same of others? Does it make sense that "queer" porn could "gay" others?

I think the pornography is catering to the interest. Does that further it? Absolutely. Is that the cause of the interest? No. Definitely not. The internet has played a role for AGP, no doubt about it.

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 23 insightful - 1 fun23 insightful - 0 fun24 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Alright, I don't want to get into an argument because you already said you feel fired-up, (and honestly I am just so not in the mood to argue about anything, so just keeping it peaceful) I just want to point out because it still feels like we are having two different conversations.

What I'm talking about isn't the same as a gay person being converted to straight by watching man+woman porn. Of course that is impossible. To make it less muddy, let's just focus on FTM girls who think they are gay boys. Many of them admit to being avid fans of yaoi and wish they were literally cute anime boys. Of course this does not change their sexuality, they are still straight girls who are exclusively attracted to boys, what it does is cause a fetish for gay boys.

Imagine a hypothetical 13-year-old girl. Does she have a gay man fetish before she is introduced to yaoi? Possibly, but that fetish had to start somewhere. I don't think people are born with fetishes. It can be just as likely that the fetish started by reading yaoi comics, and it could also be likely, as you said, that the fetish started somewhere else first, which led to her finding the comics, the anime, the IRL gay porn, etc etc. But you are saying "No. Definitely Not." for the porn being the cause of the interest, but then what can the cause be if it's never porn? And why would it never be porn? How does a 13-year-old girl get obsessed with gay men to the point that she decides she is one? There have been several posts on /r/gendercritical by women who admitted that yaoi caused them to have this fetish, think they were FTM, and completely warped their perceptions about sex, dating, and having a normal straight-woman love life. And likewise, if /r/itsafetish still existed, there were thousands of posts showing the MTF version of things and some FTM related posts as well.

Basically I'm saying watching this stuff can cause a fetish that leads a person to believing they are FTM gay boy (AKA straight person) or MTF lesbian (AKA straight person), and you're saying watching porn never causes this. I'd like to persuade you to consider that at least sometimes in some cases porn is the root cause, but if you disagree, then that's that. No hard feelings.

(And you are 100% right about the internet. 25 years ago this stuff would have never happened. I do believe the hivemind/echo chamber of the internet really exacerbates this problem, with people who are fans of this material encouraging and validating each other's fetishes.)

Anyway, I hope you are feeling better, I don't mean to make your mood worse, only to clarify my point. I guess I should have said 'fetish' to begin with, but I had no idea one sentence would lead to debate.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm fine with you personally, and I'm grateful you're here. It's the ideas at play. Yeah, they can be a bit distressing, but it's my choice to participate, and it's my goal to not be abusive to anyone here over them... call me out on that if need be, and anyone is welcome do to that, publicly. Let me just clarify my point after reading your piece, we don't have to resolve it, and we can part amicably. This is why discussion is good, we can actually get to the point of contention.

I don't think people are born with fetishes.

I think some people are born with an essential predisposition to them, and they will develop one, hell or high water. There is something biologically essential about these people. There appear to be several different clusters, so we're likely looking at several different aetiologies.

Latex fetishism? I guarantee you there's no gene for latex fetishism, specifically. Latex is a relatively recent technological invention. Evolution does not work that quickly, and latex fetishism detracts from reproductive fitness. Selective pressure. Nobody's born with this mental image of latex buried deep in their brains, and once they find it in their external environment, that there's some "aha, yes, THAT!" moment. It is learned, no doubt about it. But I can turn on MTV today, or some other mass media outlet and see people wearing latex clothes. I'm not a latex fetishist. We're all exposed to the same stimuli, only some people latch onto it. Once that interest is established, it's locked in.

A world without latex? A world without latex fetishists.

A fetish isn't volitional. You can browse the internet at length reading post after post after post of people asking how they can get rid of their fetish. A fetish can be established without any moral turbidity. (It can later result in moral turbidity, just as some people rape, as well.) A fetish may be learned, but that does not mean it can be unlearned. If it's compelling, it won't soon be forgotten. Sexuality is compelling.

If they hadn't found latex, they'd have found something else within their paraphillic cluster.

To make it less muddy, let's just focus on FTM girls who think they are gay boys.

I wish we could do that. This is one of the challenges talking about trans, me, you, us, society at large. There's different kinds of trans people.

In this reply so far, I've been talking about fetishism, paraphilia, that's an appropriate approach because of autogynephilia. Autoandrophilia/autohomoeroticism does appear to be a phenomena as well, certainly there's HSTS, but I don't think these are the primary things motivating most FTM today, the adolescent-onset/ROGD cohort. Switching gears to talk about adolescent-onset in women.

I don't think porn is the cause. It's there, yes, but it's an outlet for the sexuality they already have--they desire men. Porn overall is the result of the diversity of human sexuality that already exists. It's the chicken/egg issue, which came first?

There have been several posts on /r/gendercritical by women who admitted that yaoi caused them to have this fetish

It's about life narratives. People want an explanation for why they are they way that they are, and the things they've done. Sometimes that's a rationalization, sometimes it's a justification.

I'd like to persuade you to consider that at least sometimes in some cases porn is the root cause, but if you disagree, then that's that.

I'll give more thought to it, perhaps I can't be persuaded today that's it's the root cause, but I'll give more credence to it being a contributing factor. If I take 100 women, and set them up with /r/yaoi, I don't think they're all going to then want to transition. Certainly, and this is to your point, the perception of a welcoming society, largely the Internet, and a discernible, favorable trajectory does not dissuade someone from transitioning. I'm all for dissuading and disabusing people that transitioning is "the solution" or that it will lead to a happier, healthier life. It overwhelmingly does not. Obviously, we're in agreement on that.

Most MTF today is paraphilic, it's caused by sexuality. Most FTM presently isn't, but it has overwhelming sexual implications.

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you for your long and well-thought out answer. It helped me organize my thoughts more and fill some holes in my theories, so I'm glad you replied.

I think some people are born with an essential predisposition to them, and they will develop one, hell or high water. There is something biologically essential about these people. There appear to be several different clusters, so we're likely looking at several different aetiologies.

I feel like you might be right about this. I don't have any studies to prove it, but I do feel like there's some people out there who are just predisposed to getting caught up in certain fetishes/paraphilias or other obsessions/fascinations. Like with the yaoi readers. There are millions of people in Japan reading this stuff, and yet you don't hear about an FTM transgender craze in Japan. Millions of girls on the internet read this stuff, but only an (extremely loud and annoying) tiny minority become FTM, and somehow, the ones that do become FTM all have a similar kind of profile, they all have a similar kind of thing going on on the inside that allowed them to make the leap from "hmm...this is kind of hot..." to "OMG! this is my entire life now! I am the anime guy!" I do feel like this is a situation that needs psychiatric intervention when it gets to that point where it is affecting the person's quality of life and their sense of reality.

I wish there was more research on paraphilias, what triggers them, is there really no cure (deep down I feel like there must be? If you aren't born with a latex fetish but acquire it later on, surely there must be a way to un-acquire it? Re-wire that brain to feel indifference or disgust towards the latex? Something?)

And of course, if we ask this same question about transgenders, that's called conversion therapy, so the likelihood of anyone researching this stuff right now is extremely low.

Anyway, thanks for the conversation! Take care!

[–][deleted] 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think there's kids that need to get outside and experience sex and relationships rather than getting all their information from porn and certain internet communities. I know you don't think porn plays a part, but what if the problem instead was that they weren't able to draw upon (much) sexual experience outside of porn. Ok so a teen girl is really into yaoi and all she reads is yaoi novels and she gets into the fanfic community, or there's a young guy who gets into trans porn and cross dressing then gets into the trans community on Reddit. There's definitely a community aspect to it - now their sexuality is exalted amongst their peers. But I think there's something too in that they're probably overstating their sexual desire to transition, because they don't have any other experiences to draw on, because all the experience they have with sexuality has come from the trans community.

[–]reluctant_commenter 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I totally agree with this. I am still convinced that porn plays a very significant role in the development of fetishes for many people-- and the fact that for some, it leads them to consistently deny fundamental aspects of reality and then to trample on other people's rights, that's the issue.

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

I think there's kids that need to get outside and experience sex and relationships rather than getting all their information from porn and certain internet communities.

they don't have any other experiences to draw on

100% agreement.

[–]Rag3 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Noticed you gave the trusted advice of stop watching porn lol.

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Haha, the advice used to be "take away their internet until they chill out and come back to reality" but at this point, that's like saying "take away their oxygen!" I looked at the kid's profile and literally his 2nd comment was on a porn sub about women choking on cocks, and now he's on a lesbian sub asking if he's a lesbian. Like... maybe he needs to press on the breaks a little?

[–]reluctant_commenter 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Funny, it says 3 comments but I can only see 2.

[–]DefinitelyNotJannatPussy connoisseur 15 insightful - 5 fun15 insightful - 4 fun16 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

Just a bisexual man seeking other men in the actualmen sub, nothing to see here

/s

[–]Socialjustus 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Honestly, that post just makes me depressed. It's because beneath all of this weird pseudo-scientific brainwashing, there is just a normal teenage boy, trapped.

[–]NerveActive 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And reddit might convince him he is actually trans.

[–]MatthewofHouseGraySuper straight ally :) 10 insightful - 7 fun10 insightful - 6 fun11 insightful - 7 fun -  (0 children)

bonk

[–]Rag3 12 insightful - 2 fun12 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Stop. Watching. Porn.

Go talk to an adult.

You’re a teenager. It’s normal to be horny and you’re bisexual.

[–]MagnoliaxMirageSuperfemme 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This one is so weird to me.