Slashdot Mirror
Why Gay Men Are Worth So Much To Facebook
Barence writes "PC Pro has a feature on how social networks sold your privacy, which includes some interesting comparisons on the value of different demographics to Facebook. For example, an advert that targets everyone within a 10-mile radius of a medium-sized British town (Dorking) is valued at 28p per click by Facebook's advertising tool. However, targeting single gay men in the area with a preference for nightclubbing raises the price to 71p per click — 2.5x the price of targeting the general public. Such precise targeting also raises other issues. Whittling down ads to target such precise demographics can result in ads targeting as few as 20 people, making it theoretically possible to identify those targeted. 'I think the worst scenario might be where someone who hates gays uses Facebook's targeting to identify gay users and later attack them,' says Paul Francis, scientific director of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems."
Why would anyone be against shemales? They know best how to give head while at least superficially looking like females ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Paul Francis, uh, "scientific" director of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, has figured out that if I choose to declare that I'm gay on my public Failbook profile, then people can use that information to determine my sexuality?
Whoa, that's some cutting edge research there. Thanks for looking out for me, Paul.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Page 3 before gay men are even mentioned and that's the headline? I'm not even going to bother making an on topic post.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The gay's tend not to have kids. That means that they have more discretionary income. More discretionary income equates to more readily purchasing more expensive toys more often than the guy that supports a family. It's why you see shiny things like the latest Itoy so often in the hands of gay people, they can afford them. It's just math and the logic is sound.
The second part though, the idea that someone would go to all the trouble to use something like this to track down a bunch of gays is absurd. Why bother doing that when if your a nutter you just go to your local gay bar instead? You know the one that advertises to attract all of those gays?
Don't want to be targeted? Don't use Facebook.
Will it also include all the deeply-closeted homosexuals who always seem to be the most vocal gay-bashers in any given group? Because I'm thinking that if someone like Ted Haggard sees his own house on the list, it may actually result in a helpful moment of epiphany.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Too bad moderators didn't see the humor in my comment. Oh, well, sex and slashdot are an odd couple in the first place.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Why does everyone always just talk about heterosexuals and gays? What about ladyboys and shemales? They get no mention in western world, and everyone looks weirdly at them, while they are perfectly fine in many south east asian countries. People aren't against gays anymore, they are against shemales.
Shirley is that you?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
We should ban any weapons or other tools those people use as well, including cars, bats, and dogs
>>'I think the worst scenario...
What about more likely scenarios:
health/life insurance company raises your rates 20x (or just cancels the policy) for being in a high-risk group
employer fires you (for some other invented reason)
family & friends disown you
blackmail,
etc. etc. etc
I believe the current politically-correct terminology in the West is "transgendered." I do feel that is a bit of a broad tent, though.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
"Firefox can't find the server at www.godhatesfacebook.com."
You'll have to excuse Slashdot, you have to understand that to many of us a shemale is uncomfortably close to a transporter accident, so it's bothering us at a primal geek level.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While Homosexuality gets a lot of discrimination and hate... For the most part they are living an above average standard of life, so they have money, so advertising targeted towards them is valuable.
It comes down to a group that doesn't quite fit in well with the general public and Adds saying We will welcome you to come to our location where you won't feel like an outcast. So Advertising targeted to that group is far more effective... Thus costs more.
Many Other Minorities don't work as well.
Minority Races - for the most part the have a lower then average salary. That means most of the people will be less likely to spend money.
Non-Christians - For the religious non-Christians they have their places of worship where they feel like they belong. For Atheists for most places they go they are able to pass as a normal citizen. And if their religion doesn't have much of a dress requirement they are normally able to pass off anyways. For some of the real minorities the numbers are too small to advertise for.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
For example, an advert that targets everyone within a 10-mile radius of a medium-sized British town (Dorking) is valued at 28p per click by Facebook's advertising tool. However, targeting single gay men in the area with a preference for nightclubbing raises the price to 71p per click
That typically means young and single, which has always been a very attractive market with a lot of disposable time and money. Can we get a comparison to straight people with a preference to nightclubbing? Of course a blanket ad trying to sell to everyone is worth far far less...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
All companies care about is advertising turning into real sales. Gay guys are likely closer to females in terms of frequent frivolous spending, i.e. spending on clothing and other accessories. Not that guys necessarily spend less, but their spending is more focused and comes in bigger chunks at less frequent intervals. Also, gay guys, like women, are more fashion and image conscious which means they'll buy into fads more readily and willfully overpay for products they fund appealing. The invention of the metrosexual was an attempt to bring that same mindset to straight men. I'd say it's met with some success, but it's certainly not as reliable as other demographics.
The interest in Facebook is obvious; targeted advertising. The ultimate goal for any company in the consumer space is that we all turn into consumer whores; gender or sexual orientation is irrelevant unless a particular demographic shows increased inclination to spend.
Well, unless Facebook has different rates for advertising specifically to ladyboys, they would be off topic in this discussion.
There's a certain dichotomy to targeted advertising. It's ideal for both the consumer and business in the sense that advertising costs less when you only have to pay for people who are likely to be interested in your product. Even if the per-click is 2.5x as much, if you are targeting an audience that is 1/10 the size of the general population (or smaller), its better. While there are some businesses which operate on a premium product, in general market pressures will keep costs to a typical margin over the cost of production. The vendor can lower prices if marketing costs go down - or just put that extra cash into development of the next product.
Yes, FB and other sites with lots of your data can allow advertisers to drill down to very fine detail, but in order for you to be identified you still need to give your personal information to them. This is, I suppose, a cautionary tale for only entering data into sites you trust, and not to associate your sign-ups with referral links if you're the paranoid type.
I see it as an opportunity. I happen to run an a cappella chorus, and we're always looking for new members. Only about 5% of the population has the ability to do what we do. We know the age range we want, we know most are already involved in or like certain musical groups, we have a geographic area. We'd pay more to attract certain types of people (i.e. music or music ed background). We're in the process of considering a G+/FB ad campaign for our spring membership drive, because it will allow us to target singers who fit the profile without having to place (very expensive) traditional media ads.
For the most part, advertisers don't care who you are as long as we can make you a customer. Once you're a customer we still don't care who you are, personally, but rather that you have a good time and enjoy or value the product enough to continue using it (retention). You become part of our inside pool of customers, and outside advertising means less and less. Sites like FB are used to get new customers and move you from either no brand or competing brands to our brand - because customer retention is far easier than obtaining new. Farming for other reasons (like general collection of personally identifiable information) really is a bastardization of the system.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You're the product, not the customer. And products don't get to complain about privacy, they're products!
I knew something was odd about that add for a Gay Male who finished school in '95 in the small town of Skibbereen working as a barista in Starbucks in Blackrock, with horn rim glasses and wearing a hoodie currently typing on ... aaaarrrrgggggggggg
+1, Funny... You owe me a new keyboard. Coffee, I swear... coffee. Nothing else...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Are you serious? People still see ads on the web?
http://www.firefox.com/
http://www.adblockplus.com/
Please help me help the advertisers realize they are useless and unwanted. Use ABP today.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Given events of the last 40 years, I think a much bigger danger is that someone would use Facebook's targeting to identify Jews in their area and attack them.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Its not value per click that they should care about, its value per minute. You could have 20 people worth 100x the rest of the population but if the rest of the population is 10,000x bigger than that small population, which group is really going to provide more profit?
"but I only liked will & grace, one time, one day. Wish I hadn't, cause Facebook now thinks I'm gay"
I really have to wonder how they're determining who's gay and who's not. We already tell it out relationship stats, and sometimes, who. If you're not telling Facebook any of that....then I'm worried about how much data they're collecting and how many assumptions they're making. I already know that since I interact Facebook in a totally different way than I normally would. So...what are they assuming about me?
While I'm not sure what part of the world you're in, I know that a large portion of the slashdot readership resides in the USA. And here (possibly other places, but I can only reliably talk about here), male-to-female transsexuals are generally offended by the term "shemale". They seem to prefer either "trans-women", "MtF" or just "women". That may explain your -1 troll.
That said, it seems humorous to complain about how trans-erasure has kept people from acknowledging male-to-female transsexuals while also ignoring female-to-male transsexuals. At least trans-women are noticed because they are sexualized - trans-men seem almost wholly ignored in the populace.
But to answer your question more directly, the reason nobody talked about them in *this* article is because they are not a lucrative target market for advertisements. The homosexual male community is not targeted for advertisement because they are so numerous, but because the retail and marketing world believes that gay males spend a lot of money and, more importantly, influence the fashions and tastes of the heterosexual people surrounding them. Clothing stores see gay men as trend setters, so they believe that getting gay men to adopt their clothes will lead the heterosexual people to follow. Because of rampant discrimination and erasure, trans people are not perceived as having the same trend-setting appeal.
Why? If she looks nice, is nice and you have good time and sex with her, what's the problem?
... I said "GAMING"! I said we needed more GAMING on Facebook, not gay men!
Signed, MZ.
"'I think the worst scenario might be where someone who hates gays uses Facebook's targeting to identify gay users and later attack them,'" I don't think that anyone that irrational would have the intelligence to do this.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Why should anyone get concerned about Facebook preferences? Unless you work for them of course...
Use it or block it. Do not get concerned (Sorry for the paraphrase Master Yoda)
"When all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail."
Actually, in general, the trans community (US) wants nothing to do with such people, they are pretty ostracized and many trans peeps consider their very mention (not by just term, but their existence) to be offensive.. so they are generally not welcome under the 'transgendered' umbrella.
Atheists for most places they go they are able to pass as a normal citizen.
Ummm
Are you implying that atheists aren't normal citizens?
Two right there! How can I filter them?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think the "sex with 'her'" is the problem.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Not a facebook user- so this seems rather odd to me.
So there is a checkbox for "orientation" that is a default profile set up on facebook? That just seems wrong from the outset.
Given many in society actively discriminate against gays- it sounds like facebook is just making it easier for people to do that. Why on earth does facebook need to ask that? It's not a dating site.
Staight people wouldn't hesitate checking the straight box. So if people are "undeclared" on facebook, I imagine there is a good chance they are not straight. Thus- FB are setting them up from the start to be discriminated against. In our society I can see why many chose to remain in the closet- FB is making it hard for them to be so.
Or am I misunderstand FB- or gays to think this is wrong? Just seems like the system is pre-disposed to help people discriminate.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The only thing making ladyboys "way more cuter" than actual females is your fetish for them.
No amount of surgery makes them look like actual females without extensive makeup and photo angles taken to compliment a feature or to exaggerate one.
I say this as someone who is not against gays or transgender people. In fact, I have many LGBT friends and even some in the family... so it's not a bias, just stating what I see. I guess much the same way you are, but your fetish is clouding your eyesight.
While this was trollish, it touches on a valid point: it's not the gay demographic that's worth so much, it's any narrowly targeted regional demographic. The summary is worded as if gay men were the focus of the article, but it's just a single example culled out of a four-page article.
why are average guys also not perceived---entirely correctly---as having the same trend-setting appeal?
broad tent
I see what you did there.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
"Dear Pot,
What you find attractive is an abhorrent abomination in God's sight. What I find attractive is objectively beautiful, and in no way subject to my own tastes, preferences, and biases.
Also, while I'm no queer, I do have some faggot friends, so I think this qualifies me to speak as an expert on gay stuff.
No homo!
Sincerely, Kettle."
You like girls. He likes trans-women. On an individual basis, I'd be perfectly inclined to grant him the point that some "ladyboys" are "way more cuter" than some "actual females" - I've been to Wal Mart, and I'm here to tell you, possessing a vagina is no guarantee you won't grow up to be an uggo. I've also seen Maury Povich and Jerry Springer, and know that sometimes, the only remark any of us would make on seeing a transgendered woman walking down the street would be, "Damn, what a cutie," because you wouldn't think they're transgendered, because they really are that passable.
Speaking as an average guy... perhaps because we tend not to give much of a damn about the latest trend let alone about setting such trends? In the morning, I put on whatever shirt I manage to hit first when I stick my hand in the closet. When I go out or have some formal occasion I might actually check to see if the colors match somewhat, but that's about it.
Disclaimer: I'm an average *married* guy.
Hey, while you were out, every advertisement featuring hot girls in bikins (with absolutely no relevance to body spray, cars, guns, energy drinks, music, or any other product they're used to sell) called - they want their broad brush back, they need to paint something.
This just in: If you run a gay nightclub, it is a better value to target your advertising at gay males who like clubbing. Also, if you sell refrigerators, it is a better value to target your advertising at people who don't live at the north pole. Also, if you sell ketchup popsicles, it is a better value to target your advertising at people who are not wearing white gloves.
I wonder if maybe Facebook is one of the only (or best) sources of demographic data which can accurately tag someone as "gay", particularly since the users themselves tend to be the ones providing that data?
Log in or piss off.
The only thing making ladyboys "way more cuter" than actual females is your fetish for them.
No amount of surgery makes them look like actual females without extensive makeup and photo angles taken to compliment a feature or to exaggerate one.
I say this as someone who is not against gays or transgender people. In fact, I have many LGBT friends and even some in the family... so it's not a bias, just stating what I see. I guess much the same way you are, but your fetish is clouding your eyesight.
I can personally say that this is not true. Not based on some images on the internet, but real life experience. Granted, I do live in Thailand and the ladyboys here are generally more feminine and look more like women than in western countries, but the point stands. Of course, there are also many that don't really pass that, but then there are those true gems too. Just last week I met one ladyboy who I sure as hell wouldn't had recognized as such if it weren't for the established I was at.
It has nothing to do with general fetish towards ladyboys. For the most part they don't interest me that much. Which of course is true for many "real" women too. However, she had spent the time and effort to make herself look beautiful and she really was. Sat down, had a few drinks, kissed some, went back to apartment and had some fun. Her "special" parts didn't matter, and why would they. I know geeks like to put everything into binary code and either 0 or 1, but in real life it's not that simple. And no, I'm not gay - I just don't discriminate ladyboys just for the fact that they have at one time been men. It's stupid to limit yourself like that if you otherwise like someone or think she looks nice.
'I think the worst scenario might be where someone who hates gays uses Facebook's targeting to identify gay users and later attack them,'says Paul Francis, scientific director of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems."
I think the best scenario might be where someone who hates Justin Bieber uses Facebook's targeting to identify Justin Beeber and later attack him.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Actually, in general, the trans community (US) wants nothing to do with such people, they are pretty ostracized and many trans peeps consider their very mention (not by just term, but their existence) to be offensive.. so they are generally not welcome under the 'transgendered' umbrella.
Well, well. It looks like gay people are only human after all. They have the same kind of prejudices and hypocrisy as the rest of us. I hear that gay people also attack men who identify themselves as bi-sexual too.
As an outsider looking in, I find the entire thing to be quite amusing. Perhaps the gay people should get their own house in order before they start attacking society in general demanding special rights and treatment.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Tough room. Or, in other words, your joke just wasn't funny. Unless your karma is rock solid or you're certain what you're writing is hilarious, going for funny can be dangerous. If you succeed in getting that +5 funny, it gains no karma at all, while if the joke fails you'll be modded "troll" or "flamebait".
Free Martian Whores!
They could place an add for free beer... umm... free appletinis.
Based on who responded to the ad- they could collect a list... worst of all- they need never give out the free appletinis.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
My karma is rock solid. I'll be just fine. :-) My humour doesn't always work because people get offended too easily.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Trenchant analysis. Thanks for so thoughtful a post.
blog
Yeah it's all fun and games until you see that she has a dick, and yours goes soft instantly, and then feels like it's retracting into your body. Well, that's how it works for me and most guys who call themselves straight anyways. There's a reason guys prank each other with galleries of "hot women" who are revealed to have a dick in the final pic.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Actually, most of the trans people I know don't have a problem with drag/ladyboys.... "shemales" is a different story... that's offensive because it's specifically tied to sexual fetishism, but drag and ladyboys are performance. Transsexualism isn't performance, it's real, and outside of people who are just beginning their "real life experience" period, I don't know any trans people who have a problem with the idea of drag. They don't like to be identified as it (because they aren't), but they can accept it as a different concept.
That being said, there's a whole lot more to "transgendered" than transsexualism. Genderqueer, people who simply refuse to associate with either specific gender, androgynous culture, etc., all fit within the umbrella term.
And yes, I do know several transgendered individuals, some of whom are also transsexual. It comes from my volunteer work with the local queer community center.
Also worth noting... historically treatment for transgender issues was restricted by a (now debunked) theory that very narrowly defined what could be accepted as "trans". That created an inaccurate skew in terms of the sexuality... in Canada, for example, until the last couple of years it was impossible for somebody who identified as homosexual to get gender reassignment therapy. If you were a transwoman, you, by definition, had to like men exclusively, sexually. That has changed, and a very large number of "gay" trans people have come out of the woodwork and are now seeking therapy. I would expect that when the dust settles it'll be somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of trans people who are homosexual.
Everybody looks down on someone. I try to be egalitarian and look down on all of you equally.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Yeah it's all fun and games until you see that she has a dick, and yours goes soft instantly, and then feels like it's retracting into your body. Well, that's how it works for me and most guys who call themselves straight anyways. There's a reason guys prank each other with galleries of "hot women" who are revealed to have a dick in the final pic.
And do you have a real life experience of this, or are you basing it on someone surprising you with such image on the internet? Because in real life it is quite different. I used to think just like that, and still somewhat do, but it only applies to internet. In real world, not so much, if the "girl" is nice looking.
Not necessarily. Gender identity and sexual preference are not always related. There are some transgender people who are attracted to members of the gender that they identify with, rather than the one that they were born with, which makes life very difficult for them.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There's an "Interested in [] Men [] Women" field which many people will hide just because they hide lots of information. You have to remember that the site was set up as a college network of people, so that is the type of information people were looking for. It doesn't have to be a dating site for people to go to it for dating information.
Not so many of them here in Malaysia, need to pay you a visit sometime :)
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
You don't know what you're talking about. There are only two issues for transpeople. Age and body type (ecto vs. endomorphic.) You begin hormone therapy early in puberty and you can't tell the person is trans... period. You catch a person in their 20s and they are reasonably endomorphic and they pass well after hormone therapy. In fact there are a number of professional models, a few actresses, and competitive beauty contestants in other countries who are transgendered. The key is bone structure and in some cases intersexing (the mixing of sexual expression from birth.) The reason you say transpeople don't pass is because all you've ever seen were the one's who didn't. The rest have simply melted into society and you'll never know who they are, because they lead quiet normal lives in their gender of choice.
Apply for a job: Think the the hiring manager doesn't google you to see if you are "their kind of people?" Think what religious affiliation you do or do not have fails to influence if you get the job? Think your membership (or lack) in the NRA might make the difference?
As these personal information aggregaters are able to provide more and more details about your most personal and private life and these conclusions become more and more available to those who have significant impact on your life what happens if that information is wrong? How do you continue to have a private, thoughtful and reflective life if you can not even explore ideas without consequences. What happens when a "friend" of a "friend" of a "friend" gets labeled as a Nazi or a child molester? Are you now tared? How much time, fear and money will we scrubbing our e-reputation like we now have to do our credit reports for fraud and false reports? Will companies sell me their product or provide cell service if I am likely to give them a bad review? Why should it matter to an employer or the government what books I read at night?
I admit, only on the Internet. Maybe I'd feel different if it happened in real life but I can't imagine not being irked at all by it.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I must be the most boring person around because I never see advertising on FB. My "Sponsored" area is always blank.
Friend, you should stop talking for God... I hear he doesn't like that. I know transpeople who are ordained ministers and lead lives of devout spiritual devotion. I know several transpeople who are lawyers and spend most of their time fighting for people's rights, protecting those that have no power and little say. I know transpeople (soldiers, fire fighters and police) whose heroism on and off the battlefield would shock you to within an inch of your life and shame you for your prejudice.
There is solid evidence that transgendered people are the result of a complex developmental anomaly resulting in a form of intersexing (we know the brain actually get's wired male during a fairly short period with the presence of testosterone.) If the process is disturbed, or happens at the wrong time, brain sex remains female (we all start out female and it take a series of events to make an embryo male.) This is further supported by the high frequency of other physical intersexing that transpeople frequently experience.
So tell me why, a process that occurs in the womb, and produces a human being with attributes of both sexes, and a highly feminized brain (and that has been demonstrated in research using MRI brain scans), would be a problem with the almighty seeing as since it happens in the womb, would arguably be the work of the almighty? It is only in our highly sexualized and fetishistic society that transpeople are tuned into wierd sex objects. In other societies and cultures, transpeople have been consistently respected and are mostly held as shamans, healers, clerics, and people of great intellect and spirituality. In my personal experience, gay men are typical a standard deviation more intelligent than the standard population and transpeople tend to be about 2 standard deviations more intelligent. A large percentage of transpeople are engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians, professors, doctors, lawyers and scientists from many fields of study (please believe me when I say I've met more than a few of these folks.) Sadly, a large number of transpeople either come from poverty or are marginalized by a society filled with prejudice, and find themselves as sex workers or homeless and unemployed. Tell me that our society doesn't make entire classes of human beings disposable. Do you even think about such things?
This is an expensive and profoundly painful process. A person doesn't do this on a whim. Its like cutting off your hand. If you saw the movies 127 hours, you understand a person only takes that kind of action when they experience their life being threatened. By the way, suicide levels among transpeople are off the chart, as are murders and violence perpetrated on them be people of prejudice. A transperson is hundreds of time more likely to be assaulted or murdered. So before you go around judging people (another one of those things I hear God doesn't like), bother to find out about who you are judging. A where the real sins rest.
Oh and just in case you're wondering, some of us have close family members who are trans. Some of us are very proud of the human beings they've become.
"Broad Tent"?... is that some kind of transgendered erection joke???
I do know what I am talking about. I pointed that out already.
I love my transgender friends dearly, but they do NOT look like the sex they feel they look like. They either look like men in drag or women in drag. Most of them admit to it and say it's a constant voice in the back of their head, telling them they aren't female or male enough yet. So they keep having procedures and trying new this or that, only to continually be disappointed.
Yeah... I don't know who they are. Every year at the PRIDE parade, I am asked to "point out the tranny" by my gay friends. I am yet to be wrong.
Friend, you should probably re-read what I wrote. In fact, I believe we're rather in agreement.
I responded to somebody who claimed that somebody finding a "ladyboy" as cute (or cuter) than an "actual woman" was operating solely from a fetishistic standpoint, and he went on to say that there is no way, barring the operation of a fetish, that one could find a transgendered person to be as attractive as a genetic female. I've seen some really ugly genetic females, and some really beautiful trans-women. There is no need for a "fetish" to be in effect to admit this to be the truth.
That part in quotes? That was me, paraphrasing back what the person I responded to wrote. You know, where he asserted that only the operation of a fetish would make a transwoman attractive, as if there is some sort of universal, objective standard for beauty and attractiveness which he is uniquely qualified to judge. I found it even more amusing that he offered the credentials of "I know plenty of gay people, so it's not like I'm biased here," as if "knowing some gay people" would make him qualified to be a universal arbiter of beauty.
I found his tone and his statement distasteful, so I ridiculed him. I'm sorry you missed it.
Its actually worse... because homo-erectii like this don't stop at having idiot opinions... they like to act them out. So if you don't happen to fit in his herd, he feels perfectly justified in bombing you out of existence (if you're a little brown person), or just crushing your skull with a shovel (if you're a transperson) walking down the street.
There's this thing called a hate crime. We want society to grow up. We want people to stop judging and assaulting one another because of their differences, because there are now 7,000,000,000 of us, and if we can't get along things are going to get really ugly soon. So stop making it alright to kill the pink ape (if you don't know the reference, look it up), the time for the worst of lower primate behavior among human beings has come and now should go. Please don't make an arguement for bigotry, hatred or phobic behavior and for the love of Jebus, don't blame the victims of hate for not being able to take a joke, because having a crowd of idiots chasing you down the street then beating you half to death just isn't as funny from the perspective of the poundee.
I don't know where you get this idea that I was arguing that sexuality is binary or anything like that. And yes IMO there's something very homoerotic about "2 dicks in 1 hole" and, although to a lesser extent, other threesome scenes where guys aren't rubbing their dicks together.
Anyways, I'll try not to speak for other straight guys this time so we stay on topic, but to me a masculine body and/or penis on a sex partner is a massive turn-off. It's that simple. A good-looking feminine body with a dick on it is just a mix of a big turn-on and a big turn-off that somehow is still a huge turn-off, like a tasty cupcake with a tarantula embedded in the base. A man's body with a vagina I find to be an even bigger turn-off, as a vagina alone is nowhere near as appealing as a feminine body to me.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Your tone when talking about them would certainly call that statement into question.
All you have "proven" is that you have some friends who you don't feel are passable. From that, you have generalized to the assertion that "no transgendered person is passable as the opposite sex, and the only reason somebody would find them attractive is a fetish." Pointing out the obvious transgendered person at a gay pride parade doesn't prove your point, either.
And for what it's worth, I'm sure your attitude that "they do NOT look like the sex they feel they look like, they either look like men in drag or women in drag," is in no way contributory to your so-called friends feeling that "constant voice in the back of their head, telling them they aren't female or male enough yet," either. I mean, with "friends" like you eager to point out that nobody could ever find them attractive, or could only find them attractive as the object of a sick fetish, how could they not be happy with the results of their transition?
The subjective linear scale of how attractive I find someone is not exactly perfectly parallel to the subjective linear scale of how beautiful I think they are. And neither of the two is necessarily correlated perfectly to the subjective linear scale of whether or not I'd like to have sex with them.
I'm the real Vorokrytin P. Winterbuttocks.
Because only perfect people deserve to be treated like human beings.
Yep, you get that basic effect in most minority groups.. people within the group trying to associate themselves with the mainstream by demonstrating that they hate the same people the 'normal' people do, or being able to point to others saying 'see, we are not perverts, THEY are the real ones! we are normal just like you!'.
This has, unfortunately, become a real problem with the gay right's movement over the last two decades, which often puts me in a rather uncomfortable position of supporting their cause yet not wanting to support the professional activists/groups due to their attacks on groups they want to cast off now that they have some power....
Everybody looks down on someone. I try to be egalitarian and look down on all of you equally.
I only look down on people that look down on others.
(Note: I look down on myself as well due to this rule.)
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I see many who feel 'ladyboy' and 'newhalf' are just as offensive as 'shemale', essentially leaving the trans community with no non-offensive (english) word for such people, which I tend to interpret as their existence being offensive.
It might be an element of the groups I have dealt with, who tend to be pretty big on the 'gender binary' concept, so things like genderqueer/adrogynous/etc are attacked as hurting the absolutism they seek. Very similar to the attacks I see from gays against bi peeps since they see bisexually somehow underpinning both their normalcy and genetic argument. On the trans end it often seems to come down to clinging to the imagery of it being a simple birth defect, and thus there are still only two sexes and they simply have a correction to make.. anything inbetween threatens this idea.
Honey roasted peanuts.
I see many who feel 'ladyboy' and 'newhalf' are just as offensive as 'shemale', essentially leaving the trans community with no non-offensive (english) word for such people, which I tend to interpret as their existence being offensive.
I suppose. In truth, I live in a country that's generally fairly open to it (still have our fair share of stupid, mind you), and in a city that's especially open to it. There's still a number of people for whom it's automatically a bad thing, and I don't think we'll ever reach a day when guys who think that getting aroused when looking at an attractive transwoman makes them gay will be gone, but things are getting better. Slowly but surely, things are improving for trans people, and I'm seeing it first hand, because I'm working directly in community outreach and education. (as recently as yesterday, I taught a seminar for a federal government department on how to create safer spaces and use inclusive language for the queer community). I don't really live in the part of the world where terms like "ladyboy" or "newhalf" are used commonly, though.
It might be an element of the groups I have dealt with, who tend to be pretty big on the 'gender binary' concept, so things like genderqueer/adrogynous/etc are attacked as hurting the absolutism they seek. Very similar to the attacks I see from gays against bi peeps since they see bisexually somehow underpinning both their normalcy and genetic argument. On the trans end it often seems to come down to clinging to the imagery of it being a simple birth defect, and thus there are still only two sexes and they simply have a correction to make.. anything inbetween threatens this idea.
You have a point... again, because I work on community education, I have a very good background in gender theory (have lectured on the subject at the local university). I can see how people would want to cling to the binary, but it's an idea that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and never really has. Binaries don't actually exist in nature, and in every way that we, as humans, have ever sought to define sex, there's variation beyond a simple A or B selection. I have never seen any reason to believe that gender isn't equally fluid, and I don't really see how that understanding is incompatible with the idea of transsexualism/transgenderism. It's a spectrum, just like sexual orientation and physical sex. Even if you are one of the folks who says that it's a birth defect, I don't really see how that's incompatible with the idea that there's a C - All of the Above, or D - None of the Above option. If you identify as the "opposite" end of the spectrum from what your physical body presents, and feel that you need to change the body, then who cares what the person across the street feels about their body? It's a deeply personal thing that shouldn't in any way be affected by what other people do with their lives.
I think the problem is that people, in general, have the notion that gender and sex are tied to each other. We're *finally* getting people to accept that sex and sexuality are not inexorably linked, but it seems an extremely difficult concept for some people to wrap their heads around that gender is also independant.
...is that you do not believe homophobes would undertake a ridiculous, ill-conceived, but technically-sound plan to identify and harass gays. The Emperor does not believe you have interacted with very many homophobes.
My facebook says im male and im interested in males. I also have all sorts of comments about homosexuality. But im not gay. How does facebook deal with this type of profile? how am i targeted?
Same here. Sometimes a joke just doesn't work, but that doesn't matter with excellent karma.
Free Martian Whores!
Yeah. there's always someone lower down on the totem pole to jeer at. It's worst for the pedophiles. Like regular people, 99% of them have never done anything wrong, but they have to live in a closet for their entire life, like gay people used to. People think being gay is a stigma, and it is, but the transgendered and the pedophiles are get ostracized even by them.
Leviticus 18:22
Who did they play against?
Romans 1:27
Now, that's a crushing defeat.
Those Romans should be kicked out of the league!
Because you mentioned that you have a good background in gender theory, I wanted to ask you something personal. I'm being sincere. What about those who are attracted only to prepubescents? In the DSM IV, pedophilia is listed as a mental disorder. What is your opinion on this? It has far-reaching implications for those who are saddled with this problem, because unlike the spectrum of gay -> bi -> straight, pedophilia and bestiality are not considered to be a part of the acceptable spectrum, but instead are considered mental defects. While someone who is a pedophile must admit to themselves that they are mentally ill, they cannot respond to other adults about their sexuality (If someone asks them if they are gay, the person can't reply with, 'I'm gay but only with little boys,' exactly...) and find themselves in a trap where they see themselves as growing old with no chance of having an (adult) significant other any further than a 'best friend.' It is difficult to have this person be in a position where they have never been attracted to male or female adults and are faced with having to accept being asexual and denying their sexuality completely.
There are no support groups for those with these problems, because the stigma is so great that any real support group would invite violent repercussions from the general public (I guess because any support groups are perceived as recognizing the problem, and to some people this means that it legitimizes the situation). I'm obviously not talking about NAMBLA or anything like that (which is the opposite of what a support group's goals are) but something more like AA or NA. The polarizing and chilling effects from the way society as a whole treats those with this problem inhibits any sort of scientific studies on the subject, because it's so difficult to find someone afflicted with the problem (i.e., someone who is a pedophile but has never offended; scientific studies based on federal prisoners about this subject have been done, but these are inherently biased and not representative of pedophilia as a whole).
Would you have any suggestions for someone who has to wrestle with this problem? (By that term 'wrestling', I don't mean that they wrestle with their physical urges, as the person I know is in no doubt about his ability to resist any unlawful urges; I specifically mean their problem with accepting themselves as they are). They have never offended and certain in their personal conviction not to offend; I thought about suggesting chemical castration, but that seems rather extreme in this specific circumstance. The only advice I have been able to give has been for them to not blame themselves for their sexuality and thoughts, and if possible, talk to a counselor about it. The problem there, of course, is that it is nearly impossible to open up to any one, even a counselor, about this problem. It then becomes repressed internally, which has unintended side effects (I repeat again, the side effects I refer to have nothing to do with offending against children, but rather, the pedophile damaging his or her own emotional and psychological development and how they have to admit to themselves that they are aberrations, with no true sexuality. This leads to substance abuse, self-harm and suicide). How can they love themselves when everybody hates them for what they are (if they knew what he was)?
Another problem is the inability to share or speak about their problem. There are very few outlets to allow them to relieve internal pressure, sexual or otherwise. In this case, I am willing to give my friend the benefit of the doubt as regards certain pornography, as I understand how that could be one outlet to help him or her constructively. But this person so far has to admit to themselves that they can never be 'out of the closet,' they can never talk about it freely, they can't put bumper stickers on their car about it, or march in their own 'pride' parade. How do they learn to not hate themselves if they cannot express anything whatsoever in relation to the subje
For what it's worth I agree with both of you.
I wonder if humans will ever outgrow this tribal exclusionary violent instinct.
Sadly, I fear not.
Romans 1:27
Linguists and scholars have proven conclusively that Paul was speaking of temple prostitutes, NOT homosexuals in general. Paul was also known to be a homophone in general that injected his own personal feelings into his "letters". Jesus Christ never said a word about gays, period, not a single utterance. Read the Bible for yourself and quit listening to people like Pat Robertson.