I find it more than a little offensive to suggest that Ambitious Feminist and Stay-At-Home Mother are opposed concepts and you can't reasonably expect to have both in the same woman.
That is a legit awful and ignorant thing to suggest, and I'm surprised to see it from you, Celestial.
It's not that you can't have ambitious feminists who want to be stay-at-home moms, it's that when you want an ambitious feminist S/O, you can't be upset if she doesn't want to be a SAH mom.
Why not? The two concepts are entirely, completely aligned with each other. There's no dissonance whatsoever.
An intrinsic part of Feminism is that women don't have preset roles in life, and in family life in particular, that it's up for the woman to decide what her role will be.
To want an ambitious feminist SO and then get upset if she didn't want to be a SAH mom is to say "I want you to believe in Feminism, but not in our relationship".
Edit: This is getting way too off-topic.
OP: Put your preference in your profile, it's not up for anyone else to make their private physiology public knowledge.
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
Some women have penises.
They are still women.
If you don't understand that then you aren't going to understand the issue. If you say things that amount to "kids these days, and their crazy terminology, I can't keep up" then you sound like just the BIGGEST patronizing asshole and that's a huge NOPE from most of the LGBTQ community right off the bat no matter how far into a relationship you are.
They are under no obligation to mention otherwise, and the site will not magically know somehow.
If you don't want to date anyone with a penis, you need to say that in your profile if you don't want to risk asking someone something that may really hurt their feelings, or get to know someone before you try to sleep with them.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
In the PA community asking this type of question to person at any time is going to make you an asshole.
In another forum community asking this same question would make you be in the right of wanting to know before committing time/energy/money into a relationship that is not going to work for your "desires".
End of the day, do what you want. You will always be wrong to someone and in the right to someone else.
Personally I would avoid people that associate themselves in something that you may or may not agree with. Understanding it has worked in the past because they met certain criteria, doesn't mean every person will meet that criterion...
E: not sure why part of it got cut off?
Kick_04 on
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
Boy that really reads as "ask people who are like you and will tell you what you want to hear rather than the people you are looking not to offend, and then do what you want," and I hope I'm reading that wrong because if not it's pretty awful advice under the circumstances.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
wasn't advice in either direction, just a statement.
If truly wants to know if what he asked was wrong or not, he got the answer in the 2nd or 3rd post. If wants justification for asking, probably won't find it here. Wants information on the topic, that was answered through out page 1.
PSN id - kickyoass1
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
This is legitimately the equivalent of me sending you a few softball messages about liking pokemon and then asking you if you have a penis, if it works, exactly how long it is, and if you're circumcised. Because I mean, not to be rude to your kind of people obviously, but anything under 7 inches is just right out for me and I don't find it attractive at all. I'm totally open-minded and stuff, but really I just have no interest in ever touching a penis that isn't exactly to my specifications. And I mean, I understand, some guys are circumcised, I'm down with that kind of thing, I have friends who are circumcised, I just feel like I can't really get into it unless there's a foreskin there.
The only difference is that you think that's incredibly invasive and the sort of thing it would be natural for me to find out over time rather than before I've even asked you what your name is, but you're asking if there's a way to do the equivalent to people on OKCupid.
No. However, in the conversation you posted, the way you phrased the question about gender and the abruptness of it was off-putting. At that point in the conversation you were not yet in a situation where it seemed likely that your dick was at risk of coming into contact with another dick (a hookup was not yet imminent), and also you were not yet friends with this person (at which point it would be legit to have a conversation about someone's gender, the same way you might ask about religion or other things people have strong feelings about).
Question 2:
Shouldn't I, despite being a privileged white straight suburban male - be allowed to know whether or not someone I'm interested in is compatible with me sexually?
Yeah, totally. But it shows bad judgment to start asking about that sort of stuff right at the outset unless you're specifically going for a one-off hookup rather than dating.
Question 3: Would it just be better to bite the bullet and include in my profile that I am interested in biological women only? I have a bad feeling that's a great way to piss off a lot of folks.
I don't think you should say that in your profile, because a lot of cool nerds will think it means you're bigoted, and it doesn't seem like you are; you're just not fully conversant in the language yet, and there's no particular reason you would be if you haven't been closely involved with people who do use specific language and concepts about sex and gender, or if you don't frequent the parts of the internet where people talk about this stuff all the time.
You could put something on your profile like "It seems like the sort of cool people I want to hang out with are all over the spectra for gender and sexuality. I'm pretty straight though, so if sex is going to be a jousting match, I'm not up for it."
That said, unless you're really worried about wasting your time--if going on a couple dates with someone who you eventually realize you're not eligible to hook up with is time wasted, as opposed to a fun couple of evenings--I wouldn't put anything to this effect on my profile at all, just because profiles tend to be more about relationship compatibility and less about sexual compatibility (which isn't necessarily a good thing! But it's important to have a profile that doesn't stray too far from the standards of the dating site's community).
Dating is weird. You're attracted to whomever you are attracted to. Some people are and aren't attracted to others based on race, religion, appearances, among other things. Even if it sounds horribly racist, if you're not attracted to black women it's better to be honest with yourself. Preferences don't have to make sense and when it comes to dating you can absolutely be picky. Just be aware the more you limit yourself the long it will take to meet someone you are interested in. In a somewhat similar fashion, I ruled out ever dating Republicans as I am a staunch Democrat. Sure enough, I was matched with a Republican girl whom I dated for 3 years. It goes to show that getting outside your comfort zone can reward you. Maybe try taking some of these girls out instead of asking about their meaty bits, and the info will present itself.
If you don't understand that then you aren't going to understand the issue. If you say things that amount to "kids these days, and their crazy terminology, I can't keep up" then you sound like just the BIGGEST patronizing asshole and that's a huge NOPE from most of the LGBTQ community right off the bat no matter how far into a relationship you are.
They are under no obligation to mention otherwise, and the site will not magically know somehow.
If you don't want to date anyone with a penis, you need to say that in your profile if you don't want to risk asking someone something that may really hurt their feelings, or get to know someone before you try to sleep with them.
To be fair, even the President of my University's LGBTQ Alliance openly talked about how confusing the terminology can be to people who aren't part of the community. I don't think it is unreasonable to be confused by the terminology nor do I think being confused makes someone patronizing. A support forum like this is the absolute correct place to ask questions like whether filtering "women" on a dating site includes trans. (For the record, I have a sneaking suspicion that on a dating site, there will be some self-filtering from trans people to avoid situations precisely like this one.)
HOWEVER (notice how big that 'however' was) if you're going to date people in the LGBTQ community (as the OP has indicated he would like to) then you should probably take some time to learn some of the more basic concepts like the difference between sex and gender.
I agree wholeheartedly that if you don't want to date anyone with a penis, then you need to say so in your profile. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to date someone with a penis and you're going to just have to accept that putting that in your profile might turn away some people who you would be willing to date otherwise.
That being said, if someone is going to reject you outright for a) being aware of, b) being comfortable with, and c) expressing your sexual preferences on a dating website, then perhaps that person wasn't for you to begin with.
Incidentally putting political preferences in your profile can also be considered crass by others who, despite having potentially similar political views, also consider then to be something personal or might be wary of someone who's intently focused on them.
So the similarity would be that regardless of how you word it, a dating profile will sometimes be a poor medium for certain topics.
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
If you don't understand that then you aren't going to understand the issue. If you say things that amount to "kids these days, and their crazy terminology, I can't keep up" then you sound like just the BIGGEST patronizing asshole and that's a huge NOPE from most of the LGBTQ community right off the bat no matter how far into a relationship you are.
They are under no obligation to mention otherwise, and the site will not magically know somehow.
If you don't want to date anyone with a penis, you need to say that in your profile if you don't want to risk asking someone something that may really hurt their feelings, or get to know someone before you try to sleep with them.
To be fair, even the President of my University's LGBTQ Alliance openly talked about how confusing the terminology can be to people who aren't part of the community. I don't think it is unreasonable to be confused by the terminology nor do I think being confused makes someone patronizing. A support forum like this is the absolute correct place to ask questions like whether filtering "women" on a dating site includes trans.
Yeah, no, because the thing is that saying "I'm not sure I'm expressing myself correctly" is ENTIRELY different from saying "I don't know what you people are calling it anymore, your words change so fast."
That person was probably saying that people will get it wrong sometimes and they will, it's true, and I try to be understanding.
You know, unless they express that they don't know (and couldn't be bothered to before asking an INCREDIBLY personal question) in a way that both belittles and others me.
This is definitely a fine forum to ask about terminology. But the way the OP asked the person with whom he was speaking, and the way it's been expressed once or twice in this thread, is pretty insulting. And I'm relatively patient, much more patient than you will often find, in fact, and I know that no one gets it right the first time and that the cishets are trying, but if you're going to call me out for pointing out that people are missing a fundamental concept over and over and over in this particular two pages of internet and therefore completely posting past the point of the majority of the advice the OP has been given, I'm sure you can imagine where you may kindly go.
ceres on
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
More serious response : Any trans or GQ person us going to have put a lot more thought into thus than you have, and has likely been burned by it harder than you ever will.
The only polite way to do it is ask when things becoming physical is a possibility, assuming they don't bring it up. (hint they probably will).
Otherwise the "I am only interested in cis women" suggestion is probably for the best. Or if you want to be slightly more open but blunt "I am only interested in people w/ vaginas ". (which is a...odd way to put it but doesn't exclude post op or GQ people)
It's possible you could sound slightly less dickish or creepy saying something like that you're interested in a spectrum of genders, but that you are looking to date someone of the "opposite" sex. It's still sort of a weird thing to call out in a profile, but to me that would be the most tactful/least creepy way to give an accurate picture of your preferred genital situation.
I haven't read through all the responses, but somebody correct me I'm wrong. In the world of online dating, you're, you know, talking to each other because you want to explore the possibility of some sort of romantic relationship. I have yet to see a girl who wanted to date guys list herself as a guy, since that only attracts the wrong type of prospect.
So you get to talking, already you can see each other's profiles and gender/sex information. You meet, that's a further step down the path. You chat, and you then discover whether there's romantic compatibility. You can also get a better handle on whether they represented themselves truthfully.
I'm just plain confused. All of the OP's problems can be resolved by the first meet. Unless the OP is concerned about meeting guys who list themselves as girls just to meet guys who would otherwise not want to meet another guy? But who does that? If it's online dating, you want to meet somebody who's as likely to be attracted to you, not to trap somebody in a relationship they don't want.
I have yet to see a girl who wanted to date guys list herself as a guy, since that only attracts the wrong type of prospect.
Due to certain groups making an concerted effort to separate the historical and colloquial understanding of those words from the academic definition, and then insisting on the academic usage in all discussion, I have no idea what that sentence means in terms of the sets of people contained by those words.
@tinwhiskers Just to clarify, who are these 'certain groups' and could you link or explain your understanding of historical vs academic definitions of 'guy' and 'girl' because I have no idea of what your sentence means in terms of the sets of people contained by those words. It feels like you're trying to make a point but dancing around outright saying it.
I haven't read through all the responses, but somebody correct me I'm wrong. In the world of online dating, you're, you know, talking to each other because you want to explore the possibility of some sort of romantic relationship. I have yet to see a girl who wanted to date guys list herself as a guy, since that only attracts the wrong type of prospect.
So you get to talking, already you can see each other's profiles and gender/sex information. You meet, that's a further step down the path. You chat, and you then discover whether there's romantic compatibility. You can also get a better handle on whether they represented themselves truthfully.
I'm just plain confused. All of the OP's problems can be resolved by the first meet. Unless the OP is concerned about meeting guys who list themselves as girls just to meet guys who would otherwise not want to meet another guy? But who does that? If it's online dating, you want to meet somebody who's as likely to be attracted to you, not to trap somebody in a relationship they don't want.
OP is concerned about trans or gender-binary women. That is, people who identify and present as women, but were born male and have not had surgery to alter their genitals. It's not always immediately obvious who is trans at a glance, because trans people may not specifically identify as trans in their online profiles.
tinwhiskers Just to clarify, who are these 'certain groups' and could you link or explain your understanding of historical vs academic definitions of 'guy' and 'girl' because I have no idea of what your sentence means in terms of the sets of people contained by those words. It feels like you're trying to make a point but dancing around outright saying it.
LGBTQ(etc) groups, sociologist and various genders studies types for the most part.
But basically the etymology of women explicitly means adult female human.
The separation of women from this to be a purely gendered rather than sex+gender term, allowing for example people with penis's to identify as women is relatively recent, 60s or 70s depending where you want to draw the line, mostly confined to sociological literature. Here's a good write up of the separating of gender and sex in professional lit.
While I can't identify any survey of the general public. I'd argue that the colloquial meaning of the word remains 'adult human female'.
In spite of that there is an insistence, see ceres post, that the usage that has existed in sociology literature for maybe 40 years is the only correct usage.
Which makes what akila wrote pretty much non-sense as far as the OP is concerned. In essence all the words that mean female sex+gender, no longer mean that. Except to you know, the vast majority of people who continue to use those words the way they are generally understood and have been for in some cases hundreds of years.
tinwhiskers on
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
That is a line of conversation that is in no way continuing here.
If you cannot find the humanity within yourself to respect people enough to identify them the way they wish to be identified, you do not belong here.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
The separation of women from this to be a purely gendered rather than sex+gender term, allowing for example people with penis's to identify as women is relatively recent, 60s or 70s depending where you want to draw the line, mostly confined to sociological literature. Here's a good write up of the separating of gender and sex in professional lit.
Oh heavens, it wasn't allowed and so definitely didn't happen.
This is roughly like objecting to the modern usage of the word atom. Do you know it literally means "indivisible particle"? Yet we have quarks and fission reactors.
It's almost like the old usage was wrong and misleading but now that we know more things we're trying to address the language so it correctly reflects reality.
And now I'm picturing a line of Greek gods picketing a fission plant.
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
You know I think the OP has been answered sufficiently at this point.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
Posts
An intrinsic part of Feminism is that women don't have preset roles in life, and in family life in particular, that it's up for the woman to decide what her role will be.
To want an ambitious feminist SO and then get upset if she didn't want to be a SAH mom is to say "I want you to believe in Feminism, but not in our relationship".
Edit: This is getting way too off-topic.
OP: Put your preference in your profile, it's not up for anyone else to make their private physiology public knowledge.
to answer the question, just click 'woman' in the looking for field and go with it!
I am legitimately asking a question here and not being snarky, but, does this filter out transwomen (pardon if I didn't use the proper term)?
hmmmmm
I have no idea!
that's a good point .... but probably not one he'd run into very often.
They are still women.
If you don't understand that then you aren't going to understand the issue. If you say things that amount to "kids these days, and their crazy terminology, I can't keep up" then you sound like just the BIGGEST patronizing asshole and that's a huge NOPE from most of the LGBTQ community right off the bat no matter how far into a relationship you are.
They are under no obligation to mention otherwise, and the site will not magically know somehow.
If you don't want to date anyone with a penis, you need to say that in your profile if you don't want to risk asking someone something that may really hurt their feelings, or get to know someone before you try to sleep with them.
In another forum community asking this same question would make you be in the right of wanting to know before committing time/energy/money into a relationship that is not going to work for your "desires".
End of the day, do what you want. You will always be wrong to someone and in the right to someone else.
Personally I would avoid people that associate themselves in something that you may or may not agree with. Understanding it has worked in the past because they met certain criteria, doesn't mean every person will meet that criterion...
E: not sure why part of it got cut off?
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
If truly wants to know if what he asked was wrong or not, he got the answer in the 2nd or 3rd post. If wants justification for asking, probably won't find it here. Wants information on the topic, that was answered through out page 1.
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
The only difference is that you think that's incredibly invasive and the sort of thing it would be natural for me to find out over time rather than before I've even asked you what your name is, but you're asking if there's a way to do the equivalent to people on OKCupid.
No. However, in the conversation you posted, the way you phrased the question about gender and the abruptness of it was off-putting. At that point in the conversation you were not yet in a situation where it seemed likely that your dick was at risk of coming into contact with another dick (a hookup was not yet imminent), and also you were not yet friends with this person (at which point it would be legit to have a conversation about someone's gender, the same way you might ask about religion or other things people have strong feelings about).
Question 2:
Shouldn't I, despite being a privileged white straight suburban male - be allowed to know whether or not someone I'm interested in is compatible with me sexually?
Yeah, totally. But it shows bad judgment to start asking about that sort of stuff right at the outset unless you're specifically going for a one-off hookup rather than dating.
Question 3: Would it just be better to bite the bullet and include in my profile that I am interested in biological women only? I have a bad feeling that's a great way to piss off a lot of folks.
I don't think you should say that in your profile, because a lot of cool nerds will think it means you're bigoted, and it doesn't seem like you are; you're just not fully conversant in the language yet, and there's no particular reason you would be if you haven't been closely involved with people who do use specific language and concepts about sex and gender, or if you don't frequent the parts of the internet where people talk about this stuff all the time.
You could put something on your profile like "It seems like the sort of cool people I want to hang out with are all over the spectra for gender and sexuality. I'm pretty straight though, so if sex is going to be a jousting match, I'm not up for it."
That said, unless you're really worried about wasting your time--if going on a couple dates with someone who you eventually realize you're not eligible to hook up with is time wasted, as opposed to a fun couple of evenings--I wouldn't put anything to this effect on my profile at all, just because profiles tend to be more about relationship compatibility and less about sexual compatibility (which isn't necessarily a good thing! But it's important to have a profile that doesn't stray too far from the standards of the dating site's community).
To be fair, even the President of my University's LGBTQ Alliance openly talked about how confusing the terminology can be to people who aren't part of the community. I don't think it is unreasonable to be confused by the terminology nor do I think being confused makes someone patronizing. A support forum like this is the absolute correct place to ask questions like whether filtering "women" on a dating site includes trans. (For the record, I have a sneaking suspicion that on a dating site, there will be some self-filtering from trans people to avoid situations precisely like this one.)
HOWEVER (notice how big that 'however' was) if you're going to date people in the LGBTQ community (as the OP has indicated he would like to) then you should probably take some time to learn some of the more basic concepts like the difference between sex and gender.
I agree wholeheartedly that if you don't want to date anyone with a penis, then you need to say so in your profile. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to date someone with a penis and you're going to just have to accept that putting that in your profile might turn away some people who you would be willing to date otherwise.
That being said, if someone is going to reject you outright for a) being aware of, b) being comfortable with, and c) expressing your sexual preferences on a dating website, then perhaps that person wasn't for you to begin with.
So the similarity would be that regardless of how you word it, a dating profile will sometimes be a poor medium for certain topics.
Yeah, no, because the thing is that saying "I'm not sure I'm expressing myself correctly" is ENTIRELY different from saying "I don't know what you people are calling it anymore, your words change so fast."
That person was probably saying that people will get it wrong sometimes and they will, it's true, and I try to be understanding.
You know, unless they express that they don't know (and couldn't be bothered to before asking an INCREDIBLY personal question) in a way that both belittles and others me.
This is definitely a fine forum to ask about terminology. But the way the OP asked the person with whom he was speaking, and the way it's been expressed once or twice in this thread, is pretty insulting. And I'm relatively patient, much more patient than you will often find, in fact, and I know that no one gets it right the first time and that the cishets are trying, but if you're going to call me out for pointing out that people are missing a fundamental concept over and over and over in this particular two pages of internet and therefore completely posting past the point of the majority of the advice the OP has been given, I'm sure you can imagine where you may kindly go.
Of course I don't have a penis either.
The only polite way to do it is ask when things becoming physical is a possibility, assuming they don't bring it up. (hint they probably will).
Otherwise the "I am only interested in cis women" suggestion is probably for the best. Or if you want to be slightly more open but blunt "I am only interested in people w/ vaginas ". (which is a...odd way to put it but doesn't exclude post op or GQ people)
So you get to talking, already you can see each other's profiles and gender/sex information. You meet, that's a further step down the path. You chat, and you then discover whether there's romantic compatibility. You can also get a better handle on whether they represented themselves truthfully.
I'm just plain confused. All of the OP's problems can be resolved by the first meet. Unless the OP is concerned about meeting guys who list themselves as girls just to meet guys who would otherwise not want to meet another guy? But who does that? If it's online dating, you want to meet somebody who's as likely to be attracted to you, not to trap somebody in a relationship they don't want.
Due to certain groups making an concerted effort to separate the historical and colloquial understanding of those words from the academic definition, and then insisting on the academic usage in all discussion, I have no idea what that sentence means in terms of the sets of people contained by those words.
And therin lies the rub.
OP is concerned about trans or gender-binary women. That is, people who identify and present as women, but were born male and have not had surgery to alter their genitals. It's not always immediately obvious who is trans at a glance, because trans people may not specifically identify as trans in their online profiles.
LGBTQ(etc) groups, sociologist and various genders studies types for the most part.
This is a really good write up on the history of the word women.
But basically the etymology of women explicitly means adult female human.
The separation of women from this to be a purely gendered rather than sex+gender term, allowing for example people with penis's to identify as women is relatively recent, 60s or 70s depending where you want to draw the line, mostly confined to sociological literature. Here's a good write up of the separating of gender and sex in professional lit.
While I can't identify any survey of the general public. I'd argue that the colloquial meaning of the word remains 'adult human female'.
In spite of that there is an insistence, see ceres post, that the usage that has existed in sociology literature for maybe 40 years is the only correct usage.
Which makes what akila wrote pretty much non-sense as far as the OP is concerned. In essence all the words that mean female sex+gender, no longer mean that. Except to you know, the vast majority of people who continue to use those words the way they are generally understood and have been for in some cases hundreds of years.
If you cannot find the humanity within yourself to respect people enough to identify them the way they wish to be identified, you do not belong here.
Oh heavens, it wasn't allowed and so definitely didn't happen.
This is roughly like objecting to the modern usage of the word atom. Do you know it literally means "indivisible particle"? Yet we have quarks and fission reactors.
It's almost like the old usage was wrong and misleading but now that we know more things we're trying to address the language so it correctly reflects reality.