'otherwise you're no better than any other date rapist' January 4, 2006 6:05 AM Subscribe

'otherwise you're no better than any other date rapist': fair comment? [mi]
posted by ascullion to Etiquette/Policy at 6:05 AM (249 comments total)

orthogonality's provactive response to a provactive question is, IMHO, entirely justified, but this response, and some of the others, are way, way over the top.
posted by ascullion at 6:05 AM on January 4, 2006

*sets up lawnchair and warms up popcorn*
posted by wheelieman at 6:08 AM on January 4, 2006

Fair comment? Probably not. But I was tempted to mark it as fantastic.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:18 AM on January 4, 2006

What CunningLinguist said. Fair? Nah. Funny? Hilarious, darling.

I do wish more people here would learn to appreciate biting humour instead of being po-faced whiners about it.
posted by Decani at 6:20 AM on January 4, 2006

Please. Orthogonality had it coming, especially in that neighborhood, at that time of night, in that slutty outfit in which he willingly dressed himself.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 6:25 AM on January 4, 2006

New rule: All comments MUST be debated in Metatalk to ascertain whether they are appropriate or not.
posted by smackfu at 6:25 AM on January 4, 2006

eh, I think a better question would be why ortho has to act like a snobby know-it-all.
posted by puke & cry at 6:25 AM on January 4, 2006

What a completely unnecessary callout. That phrase is hyperbole; it's not even worth discussion, much less getting worked up over!
posted by Firas at 6:27 AM on January 4, 2006

We have a new Stupidest Callout champion.
posted by rxrfrx at 6:29 AM on January 4, 2006

I don't think that's a fair comment, however, ortho's responses are radically out of touch with how this issue is discussed by people with more than an armchair knowledge of genetics and the specific syndrome in question.

I just find it silly because we are talking about judging a person's sex and gender based on diagnostic procedures that are only about 50 years old. It's a complication that only exists because of the routine adoption of karyotyping. Prior to the karyotype the news was that a woman couldn't have children because she was born with an incomplete reproductive system. Now all of a sudden, we have this diagnostic procedure that reveals some women with incomplete reproductive systems have an XY karyotype, and now the issue is "complex."

Orthogonality's responses are enlightening for revealing his own prejudices in this matter. Prejudices that apparently are not shared in medical journals that refer to patients with complete AIS using feminine nouns and pronouns.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:31 AM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

And the comment was just deleted, proving this MeTa thread's uselessness.
posted by rxrfrx at 6:32 AM on January 4, 2006

No, it wasn't a fair AskMe comment which, for the record was "orthogonality, do you warn people before you have sex with them that you're secretly an asshole, or do you lie to them by omission? i think that, you know, ethically they have a right to know, otherwise you're no better than any other date rapist." Ortho was being pretty brusque but on-topic which could not be said for that particular comment.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:32 AM on January 4, 2006

Ortho had it coming. His sanctimonious tone and adherence to strict black and white definitions of what makes a man a man only serve to show (again) that he lacks the open-mindedness to consider anybody's opinion other than his own. Not to mention the fact that he was dodging the question while passing judgement on the asker.
posted by Roger Dodger at 6:35 AM on January 4, 2006

orthogonality's original response, while... tangy, was fair comment and (as vacapinta pointed out) valuable as a sample of likely reaction. His further comments were completely unnecessary. AskMe is about providing answers, not defending your opinions against all comers.
posted by languagehat at 6:35 AM on January 4, 2006

ortho's responses are radically out of touch with how this issue is discussed by people with more than an armchair knowledge of genetics and the specific syndrome in question.

I doubt pollystark is planning to date geneticists exclusively. I'm sure that many people have only an armchair knowledge of her condition. I imagine that the opposing viewpoints displayed in the thread are probably a truer reflection of the attitudes she will encounter IRL than if everyone here was PC and sensitive, and therefore helpful to her.
posted by amro at 6:39 AM on January 4, 2006

Jassamyn has it right. Ortho's comment was pretty revealing about his personal prejustices, but was on topic. It, by itself, probably wasn't very helpful to the poster, but did reveal some of the attitude that the poster should be prepared to confront.

The insulting comment was out of line. It was off topic, and inflamatory. I'm just glat that it appreared that most people ignored ortho and went on to discuss the question.
posted by lester at 6:40 AM on January 4, 2006

languagehat: AskMe is about providing answers, not defending your opinions against all comers.

Another one that should be posted on a sign at the door.
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:41 AM on January 4, 2006

Perhaps Ortho has Emotional Insensitivity Syndrome, but his initial comment was perfectly on-topic.
posted by Rothko at 6:44 AM on January 4, 2006

For the record, I was pretty certain my opinion would be unpopular and "politically incorrect", in part because the question itself would be, to some degree, self-selecting.

(It's noteworthy that a condition that affects about 1 in 20000 persons attracted, out of 14 unique commenters, at least two who have the condition, and at least one who dated someone with the condition.)

And yes, you can complain that I'm "prejudiced", and even accuse me of things I didn't do, or you can play with various definitions of "female". (I was careful not to use any pronouns to refer to pollystark, pollystark may use whatever self-referents pollystark feels best.)

But that's not really the point: what pollystark shouldn't do is misrepresent in an area -- sexual identification -- which people take very seriously.

Pollystark knows it's misrepresentation: pollystark posted "but I can imagine that a few straight men might have a problem with being intimate with someone who has XY chromosomes, and I should think that most will need to process it", and pollystark should give those men the consideration of making an informed decision.

Look, I'm sorry pollystark has a very inconvenient birth defect, and I understand that's a trial for pollystark, but pollystark is still human, and I won't condescending lie and say, politically correctly, that that won't be a problem for some of pollystark's prospective lovers, or that pollystark's problem obviates pollystark's ethical duties to be up front with potential lovers.

To those of you who think it's not a problem, great for you, but unless you're the only ones sleeping with pollystark, what gives you the right to make the decision for the men who really are (unwittingly) sleeping with pollystark and may have real problems with that, if they knew the truth?
posted by orthogonality at 6:53 AM on January 4, 2006

I think languagehat nailed it. everyone knows: you go to askme to tell people they shouldn't lie about being genetically male, and you come to meta to flameout defending yourself.
posted by shmegegge at 6:58 AM on January 4, 2006

what gives you the right to make the decision for the men who really are (unwittingly) sleeping with pollystark

*wakes up*

snrrgghhx... huh? wait... you're pollystark?! I'm sorry, I thought I was sleeping with someone else. sorry about that.
posted by shmegegge at 7:01 AM on January 4, 2006

I understand that's a trial for pollystark, but pollystark is still human, and I won't condescending lie

Is asking for a little tact and gentleness be too much? Given that we've ascertained pollystark is human.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:03 AM on January 4, 2006

amro: I doubt pollystark is planning to date geneticists exclusively. I'm sure that many people have only an armchair knowledge of her condition. I imagine that the opposing viewpoints displayed in the thread are probably a truer reflection of the attitudes she will encounter IRL than if everyone here was PC and sensitive, and therefore helpful to her.

And I doubt that pollystark is planning on dating gynecologists exclusively either, which I think is what it would take for someone to figure it out.

I see a big difference between saying that one would react badly to that kind of a revelation, and presenting one's idiosyncratic views as fact with the line, "Perhaps you're unclear on the condition." If you are going to lecture someone else about being unclear on the condition, at least do some leg work to get it right, or STFU.

ortho: For the record, I was pretty certain my opinion would be unpopular and "politically incorrect", in part because the question itself would be, to some degree, self-selecting.

It's not about being popular or incorrect. It's about fact vs. falsehood. Truth vs. lies. It's about making multiple claims about a condition that are not accepted by the informed scientific consensus of the people who treat that condition. And when you make unsupportable claims, you should be called out on those claims.

...I won't condescending lie and say, politically correctly, that that won't be a problem for some of pollystark's prospective lovers, or that pollystark's problem obviates pollystark's ethical duties to be up front with potential lovers.

I don't see much disagreement that honesty is the best policy, nor is there much disagreement that it might be a problem for some people. What people are disagreeing with is your choice to lecture others with an opinion that is badly informed, and incorrect.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:10 AM on January 4, 2006

CunningLinguist writes "Is asking for a little tact and gentleness be too much?"

Have you read pollystark's previous AskMefi questions? Sure, I'd like to be gentle, but I also wanted to get across my point that it's unethical to do what pollystark did.

And pollystark is (not for the first time) perhaps trying to justify playing fast and loose with other people's feelings.
posted by orthogonality at 7:10 AM on January 4, 2006

orthogonality: "...but unless you're the only ones sleeping with pollystark, what gives you the right to make the decision for the men who really are (unwittingly) sleeping with pollystark and may have real problems with that, if they knew the truth?"

And what gives you the right to take an aggressive, hectoring tone towards pollystark, and use comparisons and examples (AIDS, chihuahuas) that could easily be seen as insulting to her?

The problem isn't that your opinion is 'politically incorrect' (I agree that pollystark ought to inform her partners, and I'm a steaming heap of lefty PC bibble), the problem is that you sounded so very angry about the situation.

~~Wisecracks don't~~ Vitriol doesn't help people
find answers.
posted by jack_mo at 7:16 AM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

KirkJobSluder writes "Truth vs. lies. It's about making multiple claims about a condition that are not accepted by the informed scientific consensus of the people who treat that condition. And when you make unsupportable claims, you should be called out on those claims."

I'm sorry Kirk, but what exactly is the lie?

Pollystark acknowledged (in the question) having XY chromosomes. I said pollystark is genetically male. Where's the lie?

I said pollystark has or had testes; pollystark confirmed that. Where's the lie?

"Lie" is a pretty strong accusation Kirk. So is "unsupportable claim". Where's the lie, Kirk?

Or is just a matter that I didn't use the civilly inaccurate euphemisms you'd prefer to see used?
posted by orthogonality at 7:17 AM on January 4, 2006

I suppose calling him an asshole is on-topic here though?
posted by fleacircus at 7:19 AM on January 4, 2006

I doubt that pollystark is planning on dating gynecologists exclusively either, which I think is what it would take for someone to figure it out.

Well, she does specifically say in her question that "it is reasonably obvious to all but the most inexperienced that my vaginal canal is different from other girls'."
posted by Gator at 7:21 AM on January 4, 2006

Ok, look I wrote "date", but I didn't mean I was planning to "talk" to her or anything like that.

Indeed, in the ideal situation, all she'd be saying is "mmmph umpph mmmph ack."

Who cares how she comes to conclusions?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:22 AM on January 4, 2006

I think Kirk was referring to this exchange:

orthogonality: Perhaps you're unclear on the condition: pollystark, like all normal males, has one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. Females have no Y chromosome, and two X chromosomes.

I don't know of many people who actually work with genetics, physiology or development who would agree with this assessment. Male/Female is a related set of phenotypes, not genotypes. The general consensus is that sexual dimorphism in humans defaults to female in the absence of an androgen surge, and receptors for those androgens.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:36 AM PST on January 4 [!]

You're trying to come across as an authority with statements like "Perhaps you're unclear.." and "the definition of male is.." but are making misrepresentations. If you're not lying, then you are woefully misinformed. Which is it?
posted by vacapinta at 7:25 AM on January 4, 2006

I see a big difference between saying that one would react badly to that kind of a revelation, and presenting one's idiosyncratic views as fact with the line, "Perhaps you're unclear on the condition." If you are going to lecture someone else about being unclear on the condition, at least do some leg work to get it right, or STFU.

Agreed. But I still think that she is likely encounter men for whom no facts will be enough to dissuade from the belief that sleeping with pollystark = sleeping with a man. Ignorant, absolutely. But probably an unfortunate fact of life for her.
posted by amro at 7:28 AM on January 4, 2006

Oh, DanOStuporStar/Anus, I was wondering when you'd show up riding your hobby horse to jihad. I'll give you this, even though you're not so good at telling the difference between joking and seriousness, you're excellent at holding a grudge. (It amazes me you get anything else done, what with your knuckles so white holding that grudge so tight, but fortunately, that's your problem, not mine.)
posted by orthogonality at 7:31 AM on January 4, 2006

ortho, just to be clear, there's nothing at all that is ethical about your argument. You've made all sorts of assertions but I don't see a yard stick. What if pollystark had been raped in the past? Or sexually molested as a child? Is she required to disclose such personal trauma to all her potential partners, even casual flings, because they might have qualms or prejudices about being with damaged goods? Really, people have all sorts of intimacy issues. At what point, exactly, do you require such disclosure? Why do you draw the line at AIS and not somewhere else? Does your ethical framework address these issues or is it really just your own personal prejudices and taboos that lead you condemn pollystark?

For a lot of people, disclosure only becomes an imperative when potential harm is involved. This makes a lot of sense. Most people recognize that human prejudice and ignorance is fundamentally contrary to human freedom. Requiring everybody to disclose everything to potential partners (or anybody else) becomes little more than a way to enforce various prejudices. Among consenting adults in a relationship the assumption is made that each one will reveal themselves to the other to the extent that the other returns the favor. Because personal issues leave each one of us so vulnerable it's agreed that they can only be disclosed in environments of trust and mutual respect. (Indeed, this is pretty much the definition of relationship as far as I'm concerned.) In cases where these issues pose no danger to their partners then, in the interests of individual freedom, there can be no imperative to require them to disclose such issues.

The real problem with your behavior in the green--and I personally found it pretty repulsive--was not your "edginess" or your brave willingness to stick it to the PC establishment and speak out on the internet. (Though bravo for doing so. It's rare to find such actions these days.) It was the combination of your aggressive tone with your simplistic, stupid logic that completely fails to address both the scientific and ethical complexities of the question. Tell yourself whatever you need to in order to feel good about yourself, just try to understand why people think you're an asshole.
posted by nixerman at 7:37 AM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

AskMe is about providing answers, not defending your opinions against all comers.

Maybe. But AskMe is also about providing answers, not flogging anyone who disagrees with MeFi dogma. And since any comment straying from MeFi groupthink seems to provoke at least two smarmy, ad hominem replies, it's a bit disingenuous to scold orthogonality for coming back over the top.

I agree with ortho; and even if I didn't, his answers would still be representative of many, many people in this world. So let's clear something up: When someone asks a question about how a rare condition will be perceived, or how she should disclose delicate personal information, it is not trolling to suggest that the entire world is not the den of back-slapping tolerance that comprises MetaFilter.
posted by cribcage at 7:44 AM on January 4, 2006

my post wasn't about calling him an asshole. it was about how ridiculous it is to demand that someone else confess to you, prior to sex, a condition that based on your subjective judgement makes that person unfit to fuck.

i've reposted my thoughts to the thread without using the words "asshole" or "date-rapist", but it's worth noting that orthagonality first compared pollystark to a date rapist when he said that what she was doing was deceiving people into sex, analogous to giving someone a "ruffie" (i'm assuming he meant 'roofie', aka rohypnol, a date-rape drug).

that's what i was referring to, and I don't see how my facetious comment was more out of line than his serious one. it was no less reasonable.
posted by crabintheocean at 7:45 AM on January 4, 2006

nixerman writes "the combination of your aggressive tone "

Perhaps my tone was aggressive: I saw pollystark's question as the third time pollystark was looking to askMefi to validate behavior pollystark knows is ethically questionable. (And give me some credit: you know that I very well knew that I was going to be taking quite a bit of flack for my opinion, no matter how sweetly I expressed it; and that some of the responses would be PC double-talk about how XY doesn't mean male. Knowing that influenced my decision to present it perhaps, uh, starkly.)
posted by orthogonality at 7:46 AM on January 4, 2006

"New rule: All comments MUST be debated in Metatalk to ascertain whether they are appropriate or not." Fair rule?
posted by Plutor at 7:59 AM on January 4, 2006

ortho, regardless of what influenced you, I think you owe an apology to pollystark. The content of your answer is fine as far as the green goes (though, again, I'd strongly disagree with your view of genetics), but I think it's presentation, particularly the roofie and AIDs comment, was pretty over the top.
posted by nixerman at 8:02 AM on January 4, 2006

Pollystark acknowledged (in the question) having XY chromosomes. I said pollystark is genetically male. Where's the lie?

That's the lie. People with Androgen insensitivity syndrome are not genetically male. People with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency are genetically male with female genatalia. People with AIS are female with an XY karyotype.
posted by Jairus at 8:07 AM on January 4, 2006

and that some of the responses would be PC double-talk about how XY doesn't mean male

That's not pc doubletalk, ortho, it's a (scientifically) well supported statement, which several people have already pointed out to you.

Your originally reaction and comments IMO are completely valid, but to keep stating "XY = male" all the time is just wrong.
posted by gaspode at 8:16 AM on January 4, 2006

ortho: I'm sorry Kirk, but what exactly is the lie?

Pollystark acknowledged (in the question) having XY chromosomes. I said pollystark is genetically male. Where's the lie?

Well, lie is perhaps a bit strong, (although no more strong than your posts.) But I think here you are misrepresenting what you wrote in a big way because it's pretty clear that you are not only saying that polystark has an XY karyotype, but that polystark is really male in terms of phenotype or acculturalization. "The definition of male is having one Y chromosome and one X chromosome. That pollystark's mutation masks or hides that maleness doesn't make pollystark female, anymore than a chihuahua's mutations make it a rat. Yes, a chihuahua looks like a rat, but genetically it's a dog."

Or is just a matter that I didn't use the civilly inaccurate euphemisms you'd prefer to see used?

I don't see it as civilly inaccurate euphemisms. It's a matter of using language that accurately describes the genetic models involved. Male/female in medical terms are sets of phenotypes. XX and XY are karyotypes. Most people who study genetics realize that there is not always a 1:1 mapping of phenotypes to karyotypes (or genotypes)*. Consistently in the medical literature, patients with cAIS are referred to as women, girls, or presenting female phenotypes. Sometimes ambiguity is involved in pAIS.

This isn't a case of civil inaccuracy, but observational pragmatism. There is no way to casually distinguish patients with cAIS from XX females, with most anatomical differences internal to the abdomen. Prior to the development of karyotyping, women with cAIS were just diagnosed as anatomically infertile.

How is it PC double-talk when people with cAIS have been treated as female, and were accepted as female before karyotyping led to its discovery in the 1960s? It's not as if people with cAIS were called "male" at any point in history. Women with cAIS no doubt existed in 1905. Why are they suddenly "men" in 2005? This ad hoc revision strikes me as being a great example of PC double-talk.

* As an example, while most people with Down's Syndrome have a 21 trisomy karyotype, a minority do not.

On preview: Jarius nailed it.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:18 AM on January 4, 2006

"And give me some credit: you know that I very well knew that I was going to be taking quite a bit of flack for my opinion, no matter how sweetly I expressed it; and that some of the responses would be PC double-talk about how XY doesn't mean male. Knowing that influenced my decision to present it perhaps, uh, starkly."

So, wait... You knew that you were going to have people who disagreed with you so you preemptively phrased things in an inflamitory manner? Way to go, asshole. Instead of attempting to make the most convincing case for your opinion, you intentionally posted something aggressive because you thought it was unpopular. Wow, that's really respectful of the community there, genius.

Further, your characterization of gender identity issues as "PC double-talk" is both stupid and wrong. The comment might have been out of line for AskMe, but here it's dead-on: Do you tell people you're an asshole before you fuck them, or do you just figure it's self-evident?
Your argument that there are people who might not accept Pollystark's condition is analogous to arguing that she should disclose that she's an octoroon in case she's sleeping with a racist. Your prejudice is your problem, and honestly, she'd be right to withhold it from you for a night of casual sex.
posted by klangklangston at 8:21 AM on January 4, 2006

Too much y and not enough x. That explains a great deal.
posted by peacay at 8:49 AM on January 4, 2006

I had a long porcine voice lesson kind of message written out, but I realized it's pointless. Klangklang says it succinctly, though a little more delicately than I would. When I read your message, particularly your later insistence that this is an either-or chromosomal thing and not a 1/64th thing, I can't help but hear "Fullblood, 1/2 or 1/64, a nigger is a nigger."

Maybe you think it's all PC gender sensitivity claptrap, but your repeated chanting of 'testes' and insistence that someone disclose what chromosomal combination they'll be rogering when they won't even bother learning her last name makes you sound like a homophobic jerk to a number of us. Maybe you don't care and maybe it won't motivate you to an iota of introspection, but you at least shouldn't be shocked.
posted by phearlez at 9:28 AM on January 4, 2006

oooo, the tightness! what's her phone number?
posted by quonsar at 10:02 AM on January 4, 2006

I wasn't going to say this, since I thought it was probably inappropriate, but since quansar broke down that barrier:

pollystark posts the juiciest AskMeta questions of any poster, hands down. Keep 'em coming, girl!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:06 AM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

I'd just like to say that it's bullshit that ortho's comment got deleted. Also that quonsar's last comment nearly made me choke.
posted by Decani at 10:09 AM on January 4, 2006

the quansar function behaves similarly to the quasar function, excepting that it emits pomo radio messages of maximum length len.
posted by cortex at 10:13 AM on January 4, 2006

Oh wait... you mean the date rapist comment got deleted, not ortho's?

That's bullshit too.
posted by Decani at 10:17 AM on January 4, 2006

Looks like orthogonality's first comment has been excised now as well.
/gotta_clench_sumthin
posted by If I Had An Anus at 10:20 AM on January 4, 2006

We need to clear up a misconception. It is clear that most people posting here do not have a background in genetics:

Having XY chromosones, as in this case, means you are genetically male. Yes, it does.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001180.htm

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition=androgeninsensitivitysyndrome

Need more?

I absolutely destest people passing judgment on others based on their own self-satisfied ignorance.
posted by Justinian at 10:33 AM on January 4, 2006

Game, set, match. quonsar wins.

In an ideal world few or none would be so hyperconcerned about the genetic, birth, or apparent gender of whomever it was they found attractive, or whether or not it made them teh gay, or with psychosexual labels in general.

Eh, I don't know what I'm trying to say. Go gender ambiguity!

Chicks with dicks; Boys with tits: email available in profile.
posted by loquacious at 10:33 AM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

ThePinkSuperhero writes "pollystark posts the juiciest AskMeta questions of any poster, hands down. "
I think lazyville and P_G have that title, even if it wasn't true.
posted by Mitheral at 10:38 AM on January 4, 2006

i got an angry inch
posted by cortex at 10:43 AM on January 4, 2006

Ortho's comments were over the top. His responders comments were also over the top... and based on self-righteous ignorance of genetics.

I know which bothers me more.
posted by Justinian at 10:46 AM on January 4, 2006

Hedwig - is that you?
posted by ericb at 10:55 AM on January 4, 2006

It should probably be mentioned that the answer to the really important pollystark question seems to be: She got the Les Paul.

Good for her.
posted by Grangousier at 11:00 AM on January 4, 2006

Midwest Midnight Checkout Queens Repuhzent!
posted by cortex at 11:00 AM on January 4, 2006

Quonsar always wins, doesn't he?
posted by keijo at 11:01 AM on January 4, 2006

"Ortho's comments were over the top. His responders comments were also over the top... and based on self-righteous ignorance of genetics."

Bullshit. She's a girl, she lives as a girl, she looks like a girl, and the only way you can tell she's not is that her pussy's not as big or deep as everyone else's? The genetics is a fuckin' canard, Justinian. And your protestations of special knowledge are thin and worthless.
You've yet to demonstrate harm that she's causing. It's not an infectious disease. It's not anything dangerous to her partner.
"Oh, but what if I'm creeped out?"
Well, ask her first and if you don't like the answer, don't fuck her. But don't make it her problem that you're hung up on a distinction without a difference.
posted by klangklangston at 11:36 AM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

I don't have any fucking special knowledge. I have the fucking National Institute of Health.
posted by Justinian at 11:39 AM on January 4, 2006

The Five Sexes

(...and I thought Triodes comment was pretty well done.)
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:41 AM on January 4, 2006

Justinian, the problem is that while you're correct that AIS is starts as genetic male, they certainly can develop into biological women. Would you call (rumored AIS "males") Jamie Lee Curtis or Cindy Crawford men? That's where all the outrage is coming from.. -Bonehead

To many people, "genetic (male|female)" = "biological (male|female". I have no idea if there is a formal definition of biological sex that disproves this (I imagine so), but to many (most?) people I would say the genetic makeup is their definition of what makes a person "biologically" male or female. So, by this definition, I certainly would call those actresses male if they indeed have the XY chromosome.

Bullshit. She's a girl, she lives as a girl, she looks like a girl -klangklangston

The AIS support site mentioned in the thread noted that the condition was identical to a post-op transsexual. Who also "lives as a girl, looks like a girl." Is that also a "distinction without a difference?" Judging from popular opinion, I'd say it's a pretty big difference to many, if not most.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 11:55 AM on January 4, 2006

Yep. I gave up on the post-op transsexual comparison because people already have their minds made up and will not listen to reason or facts. But since you brought it up; it is an apt comparison.
posted by Justinian at 12:00 PM on January 4, 2006

To respond to my earlier post (should have been on the referred article, not this thread), OmieWise's comment is a pretty good response to my earlier questions.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 12:01 PM on January 4, 2006

Look, first let me apologize if I was over the top; honestly, I expected there'd be a lot of enabling of not being up front about this, and I wanted to draw a line in the sand. But perhaps I should have tried harder to be gentle.

No, let's read the question closely: pollystark tell us that pollystark's genitals are apparently "different" to "all but the most inexperienced". And pollystark, to pollystark's credit, acknowledges that "a few straight men might have a problem with being intimate with someone who has XY chromosomes, and I should think that most will need to process it"

So we can't make they argument that "what the guys don't know won't hurt them" -- unless they're "the most inexperienced", they're going to realize something isn't normal.

And if they do notice, they "might have a problem with being intimate with" pollystark, or have regrets afterward.

So it's patently unfair to the men, who might find intimacy with pollystark to be traumatic, to not let them know what they're in for, so they can make an informed choice.

It's in that vein that I made the analogy to STDs --- not that pollystark's problem is communicable, but in the vein that even if you were assured that you could have safe sex with an STD carrier ("I'm not having outbreaks now", "my viral load is low", "we'll use a condom") , you might still not want to take the risk. Just as there's a physical risk with STDs, no matter how safe the sex, there's a psychological risk (for some heterosexual men) in having relations with what pollystark describes as "XY" and the National Institutes of Health describes as "genetically male".

And just as an STD carrier should respect his partner enough to let the partner make an informed choice, so should a person, like pollystark, with AIS.
posted by orthogonality at 12:01 PM on January 4, 2006

Justinian writes "I don't have any fucking special knowledge. I have the fucking National Institute of Health."

I think you're missing the entire point of the arguement. Certainly, someone with an XY karyotype is "genetically male"; no one is disputing that. The crux of the argument is your implied equivalence between "genetically male" and "male".

RikiTikiTavi writes "To many people, 'genetic (male|female)' = 'biological (male|female)'. "

Really? How do these people discover the chromosomal makeup of those they interact with on a daily basis? I would say that, for all but medical doctors treating a patient, apparently female = female.

You both have a point, but I don't think that the karyotype is the trump card you're making it out to be. Gender (social and biological) is more complex than that.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:03 PM on January 4, 2006

i got an angry inch - cortex

Oh, poor baby!
posted by dejah420 at 12:03 PM on January 4, 2006

Bonehead: By the way, in re: Cindy Crawford. I'm not sure where you get the idea that Crawford has AIS. She has been pregnant and given birth to a child. Um?
posted by Justinian at 12:03 PM on January 4, 2006

Mr roboto: Yes, it is vastly more complex than that. I'm not arguing that anyone should or should not have sex with pollystark. I'm not even arguing that pollystark "is male". I'm specifically arguing that it IS MORE COMPLEX than that.

I'm arguing that they should be able to give INFORMED consent. I don't understand why my position is difficult to understand.
posted by Justinian at 12:06 PM on January 4, 2006

Justinian: Well, actually I really do have more than a casual background in genetics, actually having done a tad bit of actual laboratory research before deciding that it was not something I wished to spend the rest of my life doing. Pardon me, when I was doing my studies cAIS was used as a nice example case that the relationships between karyotypes and phenotypes are sometimes all that simple. But the links you posted don't really help much containing the following:

"As a result, the individual has some or all of the physical characteristics of a woman, despite having the genetic makeup of a man."

But you might also want to get out of FAQ land and actually look what *gasp* actuall practicioners and researchers have no say, for example, in this little ditty from the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Vol. 86, No. 9 4151-4160

CAIS is differently defined. Griffin et al. (5) define CAIS as completely female external genitalia, paucity of axillary and pubic hair, and absent Wolffian duct derivatives. Quigley (6) defines CAIS as completely female external genitalia without pubic hair, but remnants of Wolffian duct derivatives may be found. The presence of any amount of pubic hair is held as evidence of some degree of androgen responsiveness and thus classified as PAIS (7). In the classification of Sinnecker et al. (4), CAIS is a female phenotype with scant pubic and axillairy hair (type 5a) or a female phenotype with absence of any androgen-dependent structures, such as pubic and/or axillary hair (type 5b). No comment is made on the development of Wolffian duct derivatives.

This study includes both participants with cAIS and pAIS

Or The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Vol. 85, No. 8 2664-2669

We have assessed by questionnaire and medical examination the physical and psychosexual status of 14 women with documented complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS). We have also determined participant knowledge of CAIS as well as opinion of medical and surgical treatment. As a whole, secondary sexual development of these women was satisfactory, as judged by both participants and physicians. In general, most women were satisfied with their psychosexual development and sexual function. Factors reported to contribute to dissatisfaction were sexual abuse in one case and marked obesity in another. All of the women who participated were satisfied with having been raised as females, and none desired a gender reassignment. Although not perfect, the medical, surgical, and psychosexual outcomes for women with CAIS were satisfactory; however, specific ways for improving long-term treatment of this population were identified.

Or Archives of Disease in Childhood, 1997;77:305-309

The importance of karyotyping girls with inguinal hernias is confirmed, and further attention should be given to genetic counselling for families of complete AIS patients.

Or the title of this article: . Fertility and Sterility, VOL 80, NO. 1, JULY 2003 (PDF)

Sexual function in women with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome

All of the above came up in the top 20 google scholar scholar search using the keywords "cais androgen treatment." Not by using any gender specific keywords. In looking through these articles, while some abstracts contain the generic words "patient," none used masucline nouns or pronouns in talking about people with cAIS and with pAIS masculine nouns were used in cases where the children were given gender reassignment surgery and raised as boys.

Personally, I absolutely destest people passing judgment on others based on half-assed google searches through secondary encyclopedia sources. Especially after I have supported my claims using links to primary materials.

I don't have any fucking special knowledge. I have the fucking National Institute of Health.

Well, I do consider my fucking knowledge special having spent a few years in the lab to get it. And I have a fucking research library of primary sources I can dump on the next person who claims I'm talking from a position of ignorance.

Don't bring a knife to a gunfight kid.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:06 PM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Now why couldn't you had given an answer like that first? It's reasonable and well stated?
posted by Roger Dodger at 12:09 PM on January 4, 2006

Those articles don't say what you are implying they say. Nothing in them contradicts the idea that these women are GENETICALLY male. If you actually read for comprehension, you'll see that I was specifically addressing that fact because people were arguing with orthogonality's statement that pollystark was genetically male.

Yes, I'm sure we're all supposed to be impressed with your search skills. Too bad those impressive journal articles have no bearing on the point I made.

You and I both know what PHENOTYPE means. It is not the same as genotype, which was the freakin' point.
posted by Justinian at 12:12 PM on January 4, 2006

Thanks, StickyCarpet. I was an hour late to work on account of composing that.
posted by Triode at 12:15 PM on January 4, 2006

Would you call (rumored AIS 'male') Jamie Lee Curtis [a man]?

Yeah, though probably not to his face.
posted by underer at 12:15 PM on January 4, 2006

And Justinian: Your know-it-all attitude is not appreciated. It's clear to me that the MeFi members who you "detest" and refer to as "ignorant" are fully aware of the nature of AIS (and that, in many cases, their understanding is deeper and more subtle than your own). I've seen you go off half-cocked like this before. It's unbecoming.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:17 PM on January 4, 2006

Justinian, you and Ortho are being ignorant. You're being sophomoric in a very interesting way.

Prior to modern genetics, almost the entire world would have defined Pollystark as 100% "female". Sex was determined entirely from phenotype. Now you and Ortho, and many others, feel like sex is determined entirely by genotype. But that's ignorant of developmental biology.

Firstly, the genotype doesn't entirely control phenotype, there's all sorts of other environmental variables that determine a developmental outcome. There's all sorts of things that happen in the womb that affect the outcome. The ultra-strong genetic determinism stance is refuted by, for example, your calico cat. (cc:)

Secondly, even putting aside external factors, the fact is that sexual differentiation is a complicated developmental process initially determined by what we might call the primary sex differentiation genetics but controlled by cascade of interelated developmental physiological processes that are determined both by other genetics and environment. That "Y" chromosome does not absolutely determine outcome—if there is some other genetic abnormality that, in essence, deactivates what the "Y" chromosome would otherwise have done, then almost the entire body is affected developmentally in profound ways. (And, not incidentally, this is where I part ways with the "sex is socially determined" crowd.)

Actual physiological differentiation throughout the entire body is the most reasonable way to determine sex for most purposes. Someone said in the thread that they thought that less than 50% of people would know about this condition or any other intersexed condition and that the sex chromosomes determines it for them. That's half true. Less than 50% will know about this because much less than 50% even knows about the sex chromosomal differentiation. And, to them, pollystark is female, indisputably.

For other purposes, such as a context which is entirely reproductive, it wouldn't make much sense to determine that pollystark is "male".

And if I were looking for inherent sexual differentiation as it matters (non-reproductive) functionally, I'd look to brain differentiation for the determination and then factor in the rest of the physiology. But not merely the genetics.

I say your viewpoint is "sophomoric" because it stinks of "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". You know enough about genetics to know of genetic sex differentiation. You don't seem to know anything about sex differentiation as a big portion of both developmental and functional biology—which, of course, is where sexual differentiation really matters—and so you take a stand based upon a laughably willfully ignortant point of view. You know what it's most like? It's most like the "if any drop of blood is Jewish" genetics of the Nazi's. It's a bizarre essentialism that is pseudo-scientific. It's not reasonable. It has the veneer of a modern, empirical, and disciplined point of view. But it's not. It's simplistic in the worst way.

On preview: And what KirkJobSluder said.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:18 PM on January 4, 2006

The AIS support site mentioned in the thread noted that the condition was identical to a post-op transsexual.

No, it says identical to a post-op transsexual who started hormone therapy prior to the onset of puberty, a very big distinction, appearance-wise.

It's all fucking irrelevant anyway. The fact is that an unknown number of people would be skeeved out to find this out post-sexual encounter, but NOT HARMED or even POTENTIALLY HARMED in ANY OTHER WAY - making all STD comparisons complete fucking bullshit.

Just a hundred years ago it would be considered just as horrible for a light-skinned black person to mingle in white society under pretense of being something other than a dirty negro. Go pick up some of Nella Larsen's writing about it. It's exactly the same thing - some human interaction that they'd enter into perfectly happily and enjoy suddenly would turn horrible for them if they discovered something they had no way to know from the encounter.

If you're going fuck random people you don't know, you're going to not know a lot of things about them. The fact that a few of those things tweak common prejudices is your problem, not theirs.
posted by phearlez at 12:21 PM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

"you'll see that I was specifically addressing that fact because people were arguing with orthogonality's statement that pollystark was genetically male."

I'm sorry, I don't see anyone claiming that pollystark was genetically female. I see people using the unadorned words "female" and "male" and you taking issue.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:23 PM on January 4, 2006

"If you actually read for comprehension, you'll see that I was specifically addressing that fact because people were arguing with orthogonality's statement that pollystark was genetically male."

Well, except that wasn't the contention, Mr. Comprehension.
posted by klangklangston at 12:25 PM on January 4, 2006

KirkJobSluder writes "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight kid."

Kirk, do you have a dog in this fight? Why are you taking this so personally?

KirkJobSluder writes "In looking through these articles, while some abstracts contain the generic words 'patient,' none used masculine nouns or pronouns in talking about people with cAIS and with pAIS masculine nouns were used in cases where the children were given gender reassignment surgery and raised as boys."

Sure, I'm unsurprised that clinical studies would refer to patients using the pronouns that reflect the gender roles the patients assume in "real life".

And that's all very sensitive to the patients, but it's polite euphemism that doesn't speak to the genetics or the standard understanding of most non-scientists. An XY genotype is commonly referred to as "male", regardless of phenotypic effects. Clinicians will refer to the patient's assumed gender role. John Money also called his patients "girls", after he'd snipped off their penises. John Money is generally considered a dangerous charlatan today, but was considered a mainstream scientist in the 70s when he claimed that all gender roles were malleable.

And non-scientists might see a cAIS person as male or female, depending on any number of factors: genes, appearance, the extent that appearance was created or is maintained by surgical or medical intervention. Telling us about how you did some post-grad work in a lab before you decided not to continue just makes you one more person with an opinion about what defines gender.

I been careful not to express any opinion about pollystark's gender; only that there is sufficient ambiguity (much depending on ideological feeling) about pollystark's gender that pollystark has an obligation to allow potential partners informed consent.
posted by orthogonality at 12:27 PM on January 4, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "I'm sorry, I don't see anyone claiming that pollystark was genetically female."

He might be talking about Jairus, who was actually making a rather subtle argument. Which apparently went entirely over Justinian's head.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:28 PM on January 4, 2006

I can't believe how many of you doucebags are pissing all over the AskMe question rather than just keeping this here. Un-fucking-believable. I can only hope a number of you on both sides of this argument get nice cozy time-outs since you won't get the kidney punch you really deserve.
posted by phearlez at 12:35 PM on January 4, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "Actual physiological differentiation throughout the entire body is the most reasonable way to determine sex for most purposes."

That's your opinion, not science.

Reasonable for what purposes? Is "actual physiological differentiation" the best way to determine what someone with cAIS looks like? Probably. You win!

But wait! Is "actual physiological differentiation" the best way to determine whether someone with cAIS can bear children? Nope! someone with cAIS can't bear children (but can produce increasingly defective sperm)! Will you argue that the type of germ cells produced aren't important?

I respect your opinion, but I don't share it. cAIS is inherently ambiguous: a genetic male with female appearance.

mr_roboto writes "He might be talking about Jairus, who was actually making a rather subtle argument. Which apparently went entirely over Justinian's head."

I don't see Justinian making ad hominem attacks here. I see a lot of personal attacks being made against him. Why? Why can't those of you invoking "science" remain dispassionate? It makes me think we're really having a political, ideological argument that comes down to "intersex empowerment".
posted by orthogonality at 12:37 PM on January 4, 2006

orthogonality writes "I don't see Justinian making ad hominem attacks here. "

I think this post is the worst offender. It's not awful, but the language ("absolutely detest", "self-satisfied ignorance") and attitude ("It is clear that most people posting here do not have a background in genetics.") are pretty obnoxious. They invite a rather vitriolic response.

I think you've been completely reasonable and respectful, on the other hand.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:44 PM on January 4, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "Someone said in the thread that they thought that less than 50% of people would know about this condition or any other intersexed condition and that the sex chromosomes determines it for them. That's half true. Less than 50% will know about this because much less than 50% even knows about the sex chromosomal differentiation. And, to them, pollystark is female, indisputably."

That was me, and the reason I was so confident about about the less than half is for the reasons you stated. My only fear was the existance of a Lou Gehrig==ALS analog for AIS that meant every sports crazed Olympic follower knows about AIS even if I hadn't heard about it.

Even with all that has been posted on both sides I still think pollystark should inform her potential partners before getting jiggy with them. Mind you I can't imagine sleeping with anyone I only met that day so maybe I'm just uptight.
posted by Mitheral at 12:44 PM on January 4, 2006

Yes, I got a little upset. Because people were getting all hostile to orthogonality and going way over the top. In retrospect, I should have let him take care of himself.

But anway, Jairus said:

"That's the lie. People with Androgen insensitivity syndrome are not genetically male."

I didn't miss Jairus' point. But clearly I was responding to someone claiming it was a "lie" to say that pollystark was genetically male. It is not a lie. It is the truth. It is clearly incomplete and not the only thing that matters, but it is untrue to say that no one was arguing that pollystark was not genetically male.
posted by Justinian at 12:52 PM on January 4, 2006

Have you read pollystark's previous AskMefi questions? Sure, I'd like to be gentle, but I also wanted to get across my point that it's unethical to do what pollystark did.

I can completely understand Ortho's point here.. Has EVERYONE read her previous comments?

Theres a obvious problem here.. Shes British (I'm assuming by the use of the currency symbol in her previous posts), she wants to learn guitar, and she has complex relationships with the people around her..
That changes everything!!!

sweet god.. Grasp at straws much?
posted by JonnyRotten at 12:56 PM on January 4, 2006

I think it is telling that Pollystark herself identifies as intersex. That's an important piece of information for a potential partner, and I don't understand how people can dismiss it so casually.

Anyway, if anyone wants to disagree with me, feel free and I'd be happy to discuss it. If you simply want to talk about me being a little obnoxious in my first post, I'll just apologize for being a little obnoxious and we can skip that part and get to the imporant bits.
posted by Justinian at 1:01 PM on January 4, 2006

This is great. Can anybody play?
posted by Pressed Rat at 1:24 PM on January 4, 2006

crabintheocean writes "If you have a prejudice that might keep you from wanting to sleep with someone, it's on you to enforce it, by asking for the information you want to make your decision. It's not anyone else's problem but your own.

"I asked before -- should someone whose long-ago ancestor was a member of a race that some people don't like be required to disclose that fact to everyone they have sex with, because their partners might not otherwise know?"

I'm trying to imagine dating under crabintheocean's contraints:

Squicky: do you have AIS?
Potential Squicker: Huh? What is that?
S: (spends 10 minutes explaining a 1:20K chance)
PS: Ah no.
S: Are you a post op trans sexual?
PS: No
S: Are you a pedophile?
PS: What? No. (starts backing away slowly) (stops, caught like a gawker on the highway) What's with all the wierd questions?
S: Well this guy on the net said it's up to me to to make sure my potential one night stands wouldn't squick me out as they are under no obligation to reveal 1 in 20K stuff on there own.
posted by Mitheral at 1:26 PM on January 4, 2006

Because people were getting all hostile to orthogonality and going way over the top.

I'm curious, did you see orthogonality's deleted comment?

(Mitheral makes me laugh.)
posted by If I Had An Anus at 1:29 PM on January 4, 2006

Justinian: Those articles don't say what you are implying they say. Nothing in them contradicts the idea that these women are GENETICALLY male. If you actually read for comprehension, you'll see that I was specifically addressing that fact because people were arguing with orthogonality's statement that pollystark was genetically male.

Which to me, seems to be a pretty bad misrepresentation of the entire argument. If you had been reading for comprehension, ortho has not been arguing just about genetic maleness, but arguing that genetic maleness has more importance than just a karyotype. In other words, someone who has an XY karyotype is male regardless of phenotype. I've been arguing that the research on cAIS takes phenotype into account. If you don't get that this is the core of the dispute, please don't accuse others of ignorance.

Too bad those impressive journal articles have no bearing on the point I made.

You and I both know what PHENOTYPE means. It is not the same as genotype, which was the freakin' point.

In which case, it's fatuous because I don't think anyone you accused of ignorance disagrees on this. I think that ortho does disagree on this however.

ortho: Kirk, do you have a dog in this fight? Why are you taking this so personally?

Silly me, I dislike being called ignorant after doing quite a bit of legwork to support my position on this issue.

Sure, I'm unsurprised that clinical studies would refer to patients using the pronouns that reflect the gender roles the patients assume in "real life".

And that's all very sensitive to the patients, but it's polite euphemism that doesn't speak to the genetics or the standard understanding of most non-scientists. An XY genotype is commonly referred to as "male", regardless of phenotypic effects. Clinicians will refer to the patient's assumed gender role.

Oh gee, there is a bunch of stuff in here that opens up a can of worms. First of all, it's not just people who look at AIS that make the distinction between genotype/karyotype and phenotypes in regards to sex, but it is common throughout the research on animal sexual development. So for example, there are studies out there that talk about fish, reptiles, and insects changing their sexual phenotypes in response to environmental factors in early development. Scientists, real scientists are quite comfortable with talking about phenotypes where appropriate, and genotypes or karyotypes when appropriate.

Second, assumed gender role does not apply to terms like "female phenotype" which is commonly used in discussions of AIS. The observation that people with AIS have many female phenotypes isn't a matter of comfort, it's a matter of observational fact. Women with cAIS have labia, a clitoris, a vagina (a minority well within the range of normal female development) broad hips, and breasts. If these are not female phenotypes, what would you call them.

Third, XY is a karyotype. I find it frustrating to repeatedly have to correct this.

Fourth, why the assumption that clinicians are not doing real science? And if there are scientists who support your definition that XY karyotype = man, then can't you find some supporting evidence to this fact? After all, the nuts and bolts of science includes the peer review process.

And non-scientists might see a cAIS person as male or female, depending on any number of factors: genes, appearance, the extent that appearance was created or is maintained by surgical or medical intervention. Telling us about how you did some post-grad work in a lab before you decided not to continue just makes you one more person with an opinion about what defines gender.

Well, certainly. However, the difference here is that I'm willing to back up my opinion that scientists talk about gender on multiple levels beyond just the karyotype by presenting evidence from peer reviewed sources. You insist that scientists only talk about karyotype and trust us to take our word for it.

I been careful not to express any opinion about pollystark's gender; only that there is sufficient ambiguity (much depending on ideological feeling) about pollystark's gender that pollystark has an obligation to allow potential partners informed consent.

To me, this seems like a few very big steps back for you. It was quite clear to me that you were making claims about her gender, and where permitting no ambiguity in your discussion.

I respect your opinion, but I don't share it. cAIS is inherently ambiguous: a genetic male with female appearance.

Well, I think appearance is not strong enough. For the sake of moving towards a consensus, I'd agree with the fact that cAIS involves a person with a male karyotype and multiple female phenotypes.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:30 PM on January 4, 2006

ortho, I really can't wrap my brain around your insistence that chromosomes trump all else. How would pollystark's partners even know she's XY? Yes, they might wonder about the vag but what if she just said it was a birth defect and left it at that? How would the non-knowledge of her karyotype harm the partner in any way? (When it comes to that, you can't know for certain that all the women you've slept with have been XX.) There are plenty of good reasons for full disclosure, but sparing a partner from some putative harm is not one of them.

I hope you'll address phearlez's point about "passing." Your response here mirrors that intense, reflexive disgust at discovering a partner was "really" black, and I'm genuinely curious about what distinctions, if any, you see between the two situations.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not accusing you of racism, or any other -ism. I am trying to point out that your reaction seems, to me and many others, both irrational and extreme. (Interesting, too, that you felt the need to state it belligerently, right off.) Do you what you want, of course, but you might benefit from a wee bit of self-reflection here.
posted by vetiver at 1:30 PM on January 4, 2006

Justinian, as far as I'm concerned you've failed to put forward an ethical argument for why she should identify herself as intersex. Your argument boils down to "well, I would be squicked out and would want to know." But this is hardly the basis for an imperative. As for ortho's notion of "psychological risk," it's reasonable but it's also not particularly convincing. I could come up with an arbitrarily large list of factors that might cause "psychological risk" to potential partners. (I once told a gf that, earlier that night, I'd eaten live bugs. It freaked her out quite a bit. She hated bugs. Heh. Good times.) Again, by what criteria do you identify and measure such psychological risk? The whole idea leads to nonsense. (I suspect ortho is just riding this so hard because he really, really, really wants to hold on to his genetic essentialist views. I hope pollystark takes some time to read his previous comments!)

On preview, even if there is a "reasonable expectation" that a majority of men would be disgusted by pollystark's condition (quite an assumption) I don't see how this translates into an ethical imperative. Again, there is no harm here. At best, disclosure becomes the polite thing to do but not necessarily the right thing to do. And it'd still be perfectly understandable for pollystark not to disclose her condition and have to continually subject herself to the prejudice and ignorance of others.

The essential question here is what do potential sexual partners have a right to know? For most people, the criteria is based only on potential harm. As I pointed out earlier, there are good reasons for adopting this criteria and no other. Any other criteria is ultimately both arbitrary and, I'd argue, contrary to individual freedom. Does this mean sex is a risk? Yes. Sex is a big, complicated, messy, risk. There's no way around this fact. pollystark's potential partners entertain the risk, just like everybody else. If we all had to disclose such deeply personal facts to casual partners then, quite simply, nobody would ever get laid. More importantly, it'd do nothing than reinforce prejudices in an area of human activity that is already overrun with such dangers. And, honestly, if you're doing the casual sex thing than, in all likelihood, you've already slept with somebody and later regretted it. This would be no different. Learn the lesson and move on.
posted by nixerman at 1:38 PM on January 4, 2006

KirkJobSluder writes "For the sake of moving towards a consensus, I'd agree with the fact that cAIS involves a person with a male karyotype and multiple female phenotypes."

This is good. It's best to avoid terms like "genetically male", since the female phenotypes observed in cAIS are, in large part, caused by mutation to a gene. In a very real way, this fact makes cAIS patients "genetically female".

Limiting the discussion to karyotype removes this ambiguity.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:39 PM on January 4, 2006

Justinian: Well, I think the phrase, "genetically male" is really problematic. It's obvious because of the variations in AIS that full maleness involves multiple genes beyond just the little thing for testosterone on the Y chromosome. Knock out any part of the chain, and you end up with a person without the phenotypes that we associate with maleness.

Is it really proper to say that a person who lacks any of the genes necessary for male sexual development is "genetically male?" I think there is room for open debate on this.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:40 PM on January 4, 2006

Probably, KirkJob. Which is why my position is that a potential sexual partner should be informed so that he can engage in that debate with himself and make a decision.

Is that really, honestly, such an out-there position?
posted by Justinian at 1:44 PM on January 4, 2006

nixerman writes "At best, disclosure becomes the polite thing to do but not necessarily the right thing to do. And it'd still be perfectly understandable for pollystark not to disclose her condition and have to continually subject herself to the prejudice and ignorance of others."

I made two comments in the AskMe thread, the first defending pollystark's right to not disclose, and the second reversing that and suggesting that the ethical position is for her to disclose. I don't feel particularly strongly about it either way, but I changed my mind after reading her blog and seeing that she defines herself as intersex in what I take to be a gender identity sense. I agree that biological essentialism doesn't provide much of an ethical impetus for me in this case, and when I thought that pollystark self-identified as a woman I thought it was ethical not to disclose. If, however, the opposite is true and she considers herself intersex (again, as an identity) then it seems dishonest to both herself and her partners to not disclose this in sexual encounters. Where else would the rubber meet the road for such an identity? (Ok, in plenty of other places, but sex would certainly be a big place for such a gender identity to manifest.)
posted by OmieWise at 1:45 PM on January 4, 2006

klangklangston : "'Oh, but what if I'm creeped out?'
Well, ask her first and if you don't like the answer, don't fuck her."

I'm pretty neutral on this here whole situation-a-majiggy, but this answer that pops up from time to time seems...odd. Pollystark has a condition/situation that she's aware may ook folks out. She knows the ook factor enough that she mentioned it in the AskMe question. It would take her no time to state what her condition was, were she to do so. (It might well be awkward. It might well be embarassing. It would, of course, take between "some time" and "a whole lotta time" to explain what AIS is. But getting the first part out, "I have AIS", would take slightly under two seconds.)

Some people are saying "You should tell your partner." I can understand that.
Some people are saying "You don't need to tell your partner." I can understand that too.
But I can't understand why anyone is saying "Your partner should ask you about all the stuff that might bother them, and hope they ask enough questions."

I can just imagine my next date.

"Do you have a penis?"
"Have you ever had a penis?"
"Do your genitals smell horrible?"
"Have you placed hot peppers inside your genitals?"
"Have you placed excrement inside your genitals?"
...
3 hours later
...
"Have you ever placed a severed kitten's head inside your genitals?"
"Does squeezing your breasts result in pus spurting out?"
"Are you prone to diarrhoea during intercourse?"

People are seriously suggesting that person B ask person A about every possible thing that would put them off sex before initiating intercourse, instead of person A just telling them of something they suspect would put off person B? Telling folks, I get. Not telling folks, I get. But making folks play "1x10E99 Questions" before sex instead of picking options "tell" or "don't tell"? That's nuts.
posted by Bugbread at 1:46 PM on January 4, 2006

Justinian: What's funny is that I've always agreed that informed consent in the best policy. That's not been a critical issue of debate for me.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:46 PM on January 4, 2006

OmniWise: I agree that biological essentialism doesn't provide much of an ethical impetus for me in this case, and when I thought that pollystark self-identified as a woman I thought it was ethical not to disclose.

Well, you see, I don't even think this is really about biological essentialism either. I think it's more a matter that biological mechanisms behind gender dimorphism are a bit more complex than XY->male, XX->female.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:51 PM on January 4, 2006

(Mitheral makes me laugh.)

Agreed.
posted by ericb at 1:53 PM on January 4, 2006

Also, I'd just like to thank ortho and Justinian for trying to keep it civil and apologizing in the event of failure. I guess this is a touchy subject for all but, I think it's very important that the green not take on the agressive/snarky/sarcastic tone of the blue.
posted by nixerman at 1:56 PM on January 4, 2006

Hmm. I wrote some more and erased it and it occured to me that a meta-viewpoint of this discussion reveals that there's a lot here that is similar to the linguistic descriptive/prescriptive argument, if you realize that most people who fall on the prescriptive side of the language argument are really idealists. Denying dynamism, they want to support their socially normative arguments by invoking an essentialist absolute. And here I'm not talking about academic, intellectual discussions; I'm talking about casual, everyday conversation among regular people.

Someone told me last month, with an offended tone, that I can't make up my own words. Why can't I? Where do words come from? The word fairy?

It matters to someone what sex pollystark "really" is because most people are idealists about a lot of things, and sexual differentiation is among them. And because some of these people are inclined to reductionism, they've latched onto the Y chromosome as the singular determination of "sex". And because they wrongly equate this essentialist reductionism to scientific empiricism—and to being rational—they are scornful and condescending to those who disagree. I find that very irritating.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:00 PM on January 4, 2006

A question involving biology, sexual identity and intercourse, sexual preferences, and consent got a little heated. I'm shocked, shocked. If abortion and guns had been involved, it would have been the trifecta.
posted by Justinian at 2:13 PM on January 4, 2006

To put this point another way, if the progression of biological science had been completely from the outside in, with no look at the genetics until the end, then sexuality as determined by biological development would appear to be mostly decided endocrinologically and around that level than it is genetically. The genetics would be a set of intial conditions that both interelate in ways that make things like karyotype determinations often misleading and can (and are) altered developmentally. There wouldn't be what seems to me to be a fetish for the essential genetics to be all-important. That's not to say that, in final anaylsis, the crude genetics aren't sufficiently descriptive and determinative—they are—but that it wouldn't occur to us to define sex in such a way because we would be well aware that almost everything could be descriptively and functionally different than the sex that is apparently determined by the crude genetics.

I find it really weird to be in the middle here on this topic between this sort of simplistic reductionism that presumes itself to be the only rationalism, and the simplistic social descriptive relativism that presumes itself to be the only wisdom. On the one side we've got those who point to the Y chromosome and say: "There be Sex". On the other side we've got those who point to an entirely variable socialisation and say: "There be Sex". But it seems to me that any truly reasonably person would easily realize that there's a myriad of levels of description and causal relationships between the reductionism and the social relativism.

I'm perfectly willing, for practical purposes, to take a survey from one extreme perspective to the other, and combine some things, add water, and salt to taste, and then draw a line dividing the sexes. I'm not willing to agree that the line is drawn at the Y chromosome "because it is". Or the presence of testicles, or breasts, or high heels.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:22 PM on January 4, 2006

"Do you have a penis?"
"Have you ever had a penis?"
"Do your genitals smell horrible?"
"Have you placed hot peppers inside your genitals?"
"Have you placed excrement inside your genitals?"
...
3 hours later
...
"Have you ever placed a severed kitten's head inside your genitals?"
"Does squeezing your breasts result in pus spurting out?"
"Are you prone to diarrhoea during intercourse?"

It's called "The Aristocrats!"
posted by darukaru at 2:28 PM on January 4, 2006

Mithereal: "Well this guy on the net said it's up to me to to make sure my potential one night stands wouldn't squick me out as they are under no obligation to reveal 1 in 20K stuff on there own."

First, I'm not a guy.

Second, I'm not suggesting you play 20zillion questions with your next partner. I'm not suggesting you do anything. I'm saying that, as a basic rule, people are not obligated to disclose details of their medical history simply because it's possible someone would be squicked out by them. They may choose to if they want, and it may be a wise decision to divulge some things, but choosing not to does not make them liars or rapists.

I'm not telling you you have to ask anyone anything. I'm saying that you can't expect other people to anticipate your prejudices. If you want to only fuck people with naturally red hair, or pure-blood scandinavians, or people without AIS, you're going to have to take some responsibility for that.

Otherwise, what you're asking is for everyone to stop before sex to say,

"Before we go any further, I think you should know:
i haven't shaved my public hair for a couple of days,
i'm not a natural brunette,
i don't know who my great great great grandfather was so i can't make any guarantees about my race,
i have a small tattoo on my butt,
i voted republican once,
i made out with some other girls in college,
i'm against partial-birth abortion,
i have a small cyst in my right breast that you can only feel if you press just right,
i broke my left pinky toe when i was eight and it's always been a little crooked,
i'm not vegan,
i'm not a virgin..."

[three hours later]

"i have a birthmark on my back i can't see very well so i can't be sure it doesn't look like a face and won't remind you of an uncle you might have who could have molested you which you may or may not remember so you might not want to do it doggystyle..."
posted by crabintheocean at 2:48 PM on January 4, 2006

Crabintheocean, that only works if someone with AIS who self-identifies as transgender (see blog) is the equivalent of someone who voted republican, has a tattoo, or has dyed hair.

Are you seriously equating transgenderism with hair dye?
posted by Justinian at 3:12 PM on January 4, 2006

From her blog: Polly Stark is 24. She lives in a city in the UK. She has not yet fully pinned down her sexuality. She has AIS, which is an intersex condition.

She isn't transgendered and doesn't identify as transgendered. She says that she has an intersex condition, which means that one or more markers of gender are different from the others. But none of her medical treatment for AIS has been used to reverse purely masculine elements.

As I already said at Ask MeFi, the stunted testes women with AIS possess do not turn into testicles and do not produce sperm. But they do produce a fair bit of testosterone and a trickle of estrogen, as do all testes and fully formed testicles. I'm an XX woman, and my ovaries produce a lot of estrogen and a trickle of androgens. Both polly and I have adrenal glands that also produce testosterone.

So the removal of her testes when she was an infant removed one part producing androgens that her body completed ignored. (Her body still produces androgens from the adrenal glands, the same as me, which my body listens to and her body ignores.) But that surgery also removed a part of her body that would have produced enough estrogen at puberty to allow to to develop a typical adult female body. Women with cAIS who postpone the surgery until after puberty develop typical female external anatomy from that trickle of estrogen produced naturally by their own bodies. polly and other cAIS women who are now on estrogen replacement are in the same boat as XX women who have lost their ovaries and take estrogen to avoid premature menopause. She had no unambiguously masculine characteristics to be removed through surgery; the surgery was performed because of her high risk of cancer.

That said, I think it would be easier on her, not just her partners, to disclose in stages, with full disclosure before going to bed with someone new, as I already said on the green. Both transgendered people (not polly) and intersex people (polly!) may find some people have a tough time being comfortable with them. Why expose yourself to the scorn of an asshole, or the fumbling confusion of some otherwise nice guy who can't cope with a sudden surprise or a shattered expectation, if you don't have to?
posted by maudlin at 4:11 PM on January 4, 2006

Arguing wether pollysnark is a man or a woman is rather pointless. I think it would be up to the man or woman to decide what constitutes a man or woman as far as their own sexuality is consourned. No hemming and hawing about phenotypes and karyotypes is going to convince orthogonality that he should have sex with this woman.

If that's 'prejudiced' then I suppose that means all exclusive heterosexual or homosexual people are also prejudiced, which is idiotic.
posted by delmoi at 4:18 PM on January 4, 2006

that said, I'd favor deleting most of the 'argument' in that AskMe thread. It's really unnecessary, especially now we have this one.
posted by delmoi at 4:20 PM on January 4, 2006

I do think it's stupid to compare her to someone having an STD or someone handing out roofies, though. It's definetly not "rape", but it would be very desturbing for some people.
posted by delmoi at 4:21 PM on January 4, 2006

Yes, polly gets to identify herself. I don't think orthogonal or any other man should have to have sex with this woman. But I don't think anyone was arguing that he should, and at this point, I don't think polly would want him either.

But since polly identifies as a woman, and seems to have a hell of a lot of science and doctors lining up to support her, I find it worthwhile to slog into the arguments people have offered about her being "really" a man or "really" transgendered because I think they're just plain wrong.
posted by maudlin at 4:25 PM on January 4, 2006

pollystark self-identifies as a "genderfuck, intersex, queer girl" - not as transgender. There is a difference. The difference might not make much of a difference to anyone who'd be uncomfortable with any one of the above adjectives, but it's there.

As to 'equating transgenderism with hair dye': a million AskMe questions have convinced me that there's no consensus here. Things that seem absurdly trivial to one person are total dealbreakers for another. Plus sometimes it's not only the particular issue that's a dealbreaker, but how and when it's discussed. Thus, the AskMe question. And now we have come full circle.
posted by expialidocious at 4:29 PM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Serious question:

Can someone with XX have a penis? (I'm guessing no)

(less serious)
What if Ortho had XX, would that make sleeping with polly OK?
posted by delmoi at 4:39 PM on January 4, 2006

That's exactly why my position is, and always has been, that I hope polly finds and has mad bunny sex with a guy who has no problem whatsoever with her somewhat complicated situation. But she should be upfront about that situation because a lot of people are not that guy and, knowing that to be the case, it is the ethical thing to do.

Pointing that out is not, I think, being an asshole, obnoxious, homophobic, or rude. (Calling people ignorant was obnoxious but I've already apologized for that. I note, on the other hand, that no one ever apologized for calling Ortho an ignorant homophobe.)
posted by Justinian at 4:40 PM on January 4, 2006

Delmoi:

serious answer: There is something called congenital adrenal hyperplasia where an infant with XX Chromosones can have what appears to be a penis. Like AIS, the situation is more complicated than "genetic female with a penis" but I think it matches your question.

less serious: that would be completely up to Ortho. Polly should tell him her situation and he should tell her his.
posted by Justinian at 4:46 PM on January 4, 2006

bleh, there are a lot more useless comments in that thread which still need to be deleted, IMO.
posted by delmoi at 4:48 PM on January 4, 2006

Why are you bringing transsexualism into this discussion? It just muddies the issue. (But were I to take an extreme, principled position on this I'd say "yes" to your question.)

Again, I'll accept the truth of the assertion that there are a large minority of people out there who will identify "sex" with karyotype and thus will think that prospective partners have a right to know this prior to engaging in sex or pursuing a longer relationship. I won't accept the assertion that their preferred means of this determination is the only "correct" one. And I will assert that a viewpoint that expects everyone to act in accordance with this point-of-view is exactly like the expectation that everyone, not just racists, should accomodate in their behavior a minority's strong feelings about "race" and thus have the expectation that a potential sexual partner, for example, is obligated to disclose their "blackness" regardless of whether they think it defines them or not.

And, as a matter of fact, I will assert that we should not behave this way as an accomodation to this minority notion because doing so validates an unjust viewpoint and outcome.

On preview:

"If that's 'prejudiced' then I suppose that means all exclusive heterosexual or homosexual people are also prejudiced, which is idiotic."

That's a bad comparison. What's wrong here is twofold: first, while it's pretty universal that in the context of social interections and, obviously, courtship, people think in terms of a definite "sex" and have a right to know this status about their partner, it's the case that the kyrotype is not the basis on which almost anyone, anywhere, make that determination. Secondly, of the most obvious descriptive levels—genetic, kyrotype, neuroanatomic,gross anatomic and endocrinological, 'primary' external anatomical differentiation, and social role—the kyrotypical level is perhaps the least descriptive and useful.

This is similar to the notion of "race". Although it's true that most of the characteristics we associate with "race" are necessarily the product of biological differentiation and thus genetics; nevertheless this reductionist, essentialist, biological basis turns out to be poorly predictive, poorly descriptive, and is a pseudo-scientific "authority" that acts as cover for what is more properly understood as a cultural process and behind which those so inclinded hide their bigotry. This point of view should be opposed, it is unjust.

So, too, is this; and there are better ways to determine "sex" than the kyrotype.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:50 PM on January 4, 2006

"Can someone with XX have a penis? (I'm guessing no)"

An even better, more illustrative answer to demoi's question than Justinian's CAH example is the example of giving a pregnant woman with a XX fetus testosterone during gestation.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:53 PM on January 4, 2006

An XX woman exposed to extra testosterone in the womb (or an adult woman who takes anabolic steroids) can get an enlarged clitoris that resembles a micropenis. Yes, it's a highly enervated organ that responds to stimulation by engorging with blood, but it isn't an organ of generation or elimination. This enlarged clitoris isn't a penis any more than a massively developed arm is a leg.
posted by maudlin at 5:00 PM on January 4, 2006

EB: Race is far too complicated to determine genetically, while sex is. In fact most people don't consider race to be a valid scientific term in the first place.

I also think it's sort of a gray area. I think most straight men are at least a little homophobic, they don't want to 'be' gay even if they might enjoy gay sex. From that standpoint, if it's a gray area, then better safe then sorry. I wouldn't want to sleep with a biological woman who dressed up and lived as a dude either.

It's pretty clear that human beings have a deep basis for their sexual taboos, and none of them make that much sense, other then as a genetic driver. Nevertheless a child told that "XX means woman" and "XY means man" are going to internalize that as part of their normative definition. I suspect that's what's happened to ortho as well as myself.

This enlarged clitoris isn't a penis any more than a massively developed arm is a leg.

This made me laugh.
posted by delmoi at 5:09 PM on January 4, 2006

That's all? You sure (in the fetal case)? Is there not a hormone "therapy" which, theoretically, when applied throughout gestation would determine most sexual differentiation regardless of the kyrotype?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:11 PM on January 4, 2006

crabintheocean seems to have quite a bit more than just opinion riding their posts on this one. his/her posts in the axeme thread have taken over ortho's job of near-obsessive self-defense to the point of flaming out.

what I will say is this:

crabintheocean, you are wholly wrong. Not disclosing your entire medical history is one thing, but having sex with a heterosexual male without disclosing that you once had testicles that were surgically removed is entirely another. BEING STRAIGHT ISN'T PREJUDICE, you asshole. You can feel however you want about people that can't see past the testicle thing. I don't believe anything about pollystark's condition would bother ME, per se, but that doesn't mean that no one could be or should be bothered by it. If you want to think people who would be bothered by it are assholes, fine. But that doesn't change the responsibility of people to disclose things that directly impact the person they're having sex with.

I don't know enough about genetics. I don't know enough about AIS. For all I know there is simply nothing about pollystark that currently makes her male. For all I know, however, there is also nothing about pollystark that makes her female except for her mindset. For some people, sex with someone requires more than a female mindset, however. Those people aren't wrong, they're just different. Non-disclosure, in this case, sounds to me like dishonesty, because the attitude/clothes/outward appearance immediately tell a story that either the genes/testicles/whatever don't back up. That matters to some people. If those people are assholes, fine, but it's important enough to bring up, anyway. Assholes have rights, too.
posted by shmegegge at 5:22 PM on January 4, 2006

" In fact most people don't consider race to be a valid scientific term in the first place. "

I'm one of them. My whole point was that "race" cannot be determined by genetics. Sexuality is a far more biologically determined differentiation—but assuming that the simplistic XX/XY basis completely determines this differentiation is similar to believing that there is necessarily a simple genetic basis for the concept of "race".

Sex is extremely biologically determined (I believe), but where that determination lies is complex and it certainly is not simply found in the chromosomal distinction alone.

Racists assume there's something the equivalent to the karyotypal sex differentiation in the case of "race" and from this position they assert absolutes and use those to validate their bigotries.

I don't mean to equate race and sex with regard to biology—I think the former notion is nonsense while the latter is validated. I'm not saying that. But what I am trying to do is to illustrate the impulse to look for a dubious reductionist basis upon which to make absolutist assertions that validate prejudices and to say, "I'm being scientific, you're not".

The karyotype is an incomplete basis upon which to decide sex. It's that simple. Being "scientific" would mean rigorously defining "sex" as a concept and then looking for a full biological account of it. In general, the karyotype alone is not that full accounting and, in particular, with regard to what is most important to people about sex, it's quite insufficient.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:29 PM on January 4, 2006

"If you want to think people who would be bothered by it are assholes, fine. But that doesn't change the responsibility of people to disclose things that directly impact the person they're having sex with."

You're wrong. Period. Your sense that it's terribly important with regard to your sexual preference to know the keryotype of a sexual partner in advance is absurd. It's absurd. It's irrational. It's like wanting to know if they have a parent who is black. It's all in your head and you're expecting the entire world to accomodate your irrationality.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:33 PM on January 4, 2006

She never had testicles. NEVER. She had underdeveloped internal testes that feminized her and never masculinized her. There is a difference.

But because this upsets some people anyway, that's why I advised her to disclose before sex.
posted by maudlin at 5:35 PM on January 4, 2006

You're wrong. Period. Your sense that it's terribly important with regard to your sexual preference to know the keryotype of a sexual partner in advance is absurd. It's absurd. It's irrational. It's like wanting to know if they have a parent who is black. It's all in your head and you're expecting the entire world to accomodate your irrationality.

first: not my preference. I'm arguing for honesty, here, but I don't care about her genes one way or the other.

second: if it is all in someone's head, it's still a big enough deal to merit disclosure. maudlin says that she had underdeveloped testes that feminized her. I don't know what this means, and maudlin didn't feel it necessary to explain the difference that he/she was pointing out. what I do know is that, like virtually everybody she has or will have sex with, it sounds to me like she once had balls and would STILL have balls to this day if she hadn't had surgery to remove them. even though they were completely inside her.

see, you're defending the right to willfully deceive someone because they shouldn't feel the way they do. I'm advocating the responsibility to disclose something that, as little as it may seem to matter to YOU, clearly matters enough to affect both HER sex life and the sex she would have with her partners, since that sex obviously merits an askme question. If it'll come up during the act, then it merits disclosure. since her question makes it clear that it has to come up in some way, then anything short of disclosure is, in my opinion, a form of deception.

If you want to say that not bringing it up isn't deception, then fine. I'm not getting into a debate on language because there are more qualified mefites here to do that. but as it stands your argument that there's nothing worth disclosing is simply wrong.
posted by shmegegge at 5:56 PM on January 4, 2006

Bligh, you're wrong. We're discussing and condition where people have, yes, has an XY karyotype. But it's not as you say "period". People with AIS also need to be on estrogen therapy to maintain total feminization. And needsurgery to remove proto-testes. And who need surgery to have normal primary female sexual organs (sometimes to have ANY female sexual organs). And have wide ranging variability in terms of pubic and body hair. And, in this specific case, a person who self describes herself as not having pinned down her sexuality and as "transsex" and queer. That's above and beyond "only" having an irrelevant genetic quirk.

You're arguing against a strawman.

Maudlin: You're being emphatic but not correct. Someone with AIS has undescended "testicles". What do you think "internal testes" are? They have to be removed, for example, because they can develop testicular cancer.

Saying they aren't testicles because they never descend is a little disingenuous.
posted by Justinian at 6:05 PM on January 4, 2006

On preview, what shmegegge said. This isn't about what you think should happen in an ideal world, it's about this one. And in this one, lots of people would have difficulty (ranging from annoyance to outright dangerous hostility) if they were not told these things before engaging in sexual activity.
posted by Justinian at 6:07 PM on January 4, 2006

I'm an XX woman.

To me, balls = testicles which produce androgen and (in most cases) live sperm. There are a number of guys out there whose testicles don't do a great job of producing sperm, but this is what they are supposed to do. The androgens (testosterone) masculinize the body and brain of that person as long as they're sensitive to it. So Justinian, I'm not just harping on location, but function.

The underdeveloped testes in cAIS women with XY chromosomes NEVER produce sperm and they produce both estrogen and testosterone. As we already know, cAIS women's bodies don't respond to the testosterone at all. These little organs feminize cAIS women as much (or more) as I was feminized by the surge of estrogen in my ovaries at puberty. Think of them as WalMart ovaries. They can't do everything -- they can't produce eggs, but then, my Real Girl ovaries did a shit poor job at that, too -- but they do produce enough natural female hormone to create a womanly shape in addition to all the natural female anatomy she had since she was developing in the womb.

If this still feels to you like "balls" to you, shmegegge, so be it. I'm not trying to get you to have sex with polly or any other cAIS woman. But there is a difference between her testes and your testicles. Yours form a huge part of your masculinity. Hers transformed her from a sterile girl to a sterile woman.
posted by maudlin at 6:11 PM on January 4, 2006

(Sorry, that should be that the testes would transform a CAIS from girl to woman if they weren't removed before puberty. If they are removed before puberty for health reasons, the woman would need estrogen therapy to develop as she normally would have.)
posted by maudlin at 6:13 PM on January 4, 2006

at this point I don't know if people think I'm saying pollystark is a man or what. so let me state for the record:

I think pollystark is a woman. I also think pre-op transexuals are women. I think anyone who wants to be called a woman (except little girls who still have growing up to do) is a woman. I would not be bothered by pollystark's condition. I would, however, be bothered at not being told about it if we were to fool around, have sex or whatever. it's an honesty thing.

the reason I bring up what I consider balls and all that is because I think that it's not unreasonable to expect people to see her condition a certain way. I think that, because the issue clearly has to come up in SOME WAY, that she should be willing to disclose and to accept, if she has to, the way some people are going to see the issue. Personally I would recommend not having any more to do with anyone who has a real problem with it. now, let's please stop referring to me as someone who either thinks she's a man or wouldn't consider her as a sexual partner.
posted by shmegegge at 6:17 PM on January 4, 2006

OK, then we agree that it's a good idea that she disclose. We agree that people may have gut, emotional reactions to cAIS no matter what they do or do not know about human sexual differentiation. That's fair enough. I was just being stubborn about the science.
posted by maudlin at 6:30 PM on January 4, 2006

word.
posted by shmegegge at 6:32 PM on January 4, 2006

Metafilter: snrrgghhx... huh?

(first time, and the last, my promise to you)
posted by evilcolonel at 6:57 PM on January 4, 2006

I won't agree that she has a responsibility to disclose. There are any number of things that might bother someone greatly with regard to who they sleep with, and no one is advocating they be disclosed before sex, too. I think race is an excellent example—it's a difference that exists mostly in the other person's head.

Here's a less encumbered example that might be more illustrative. Putting aside STD concerns by assuming a world without STDs, there's a whole lot of heterosexuals who would be upset to find that they're having sex with someone who's had homosexual sex. Does that mean the onus is on the other person to disclose to the heterosexual? No, because it's a stupid thing to think that this affects the heterosexual. It's irrational.

This particular argument seems to me to be actually about the typical heterosexual male's fear of having any sexual contact with a man, no matter how small or abstracted. It's not a reasonable fear, it's an irrational fear and no one else has any responsibility to act in accordance with it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:18 PM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

EB, I wouldn't phrase it as she's obligated to disclose. I think it's a good idea for her -- less strife and drama, and a better chance of a decent but semi-educated guy learning about AIS as he grows to know her first. They very tolerant guys who wouldn't be bothered by it wouldn't be bothered by her disclosure either. She winnows out the inflexible, the truly uncomfortable who are never going to change, and the few genuine assholes before they are granted a spot in her bed. That seems like win-win to me.
posted by maudlin at 7:50 PM on January 4, 2006

Justinian writes "Yes, I got a little upset. Because people were getting all hostile to orthogonality and going way over the top. In retrospect, I should have let him take care of himself."

For what it's worth, I appreciate the backup; even more, I respect your courage in standing up for what you believe in a hostile thread, where breaking with the group-think entails personal attacks. I also congratulate you on your restraint, for responding with reasoned argument when personally attacked.
posted by orthogonality at 8:05 PM on January 4, 2006

Bligh OTM.

"On preview, what shmegegge said. This isn't about what you think should happen in an ideal world, it's about this one. And in this one, lots of people would have difficulty (ranging from annoyance to outright dangerous hostility) if they were not told these things before engaging in sexual activity."

Ah. So, if a Neo-Nazi found out that he had engaged in casual sex with a Jew, she had a responsibility to disclose her religion first, because this is the real world, not some ideal. Would you go further? If she doesn't disclose and someone beats her up, is it her fault? Where's your line?
What about someone who, though they acted and looked exactly female, secretly believed that they were male and were engaged in a homosexual encounter?
Aside from the vagina, there's no way to tell without an elaborate medical procedure. The vagina can be explained without lying ("birth defect" etc.), so there's no way to differentiate at a physically intimate level her from another girl. And yet it's her job to tell you?

As far as what's owed: You don't slam your dick in an oven. Sex with anyone who you're not in a committed relationship with is a decent sized risk for things that are seriously life-altering. If you care about whether your potential bar hookup might have had secret testes, a) you're thinking too much to appreciate getting laid at all, and b) it's your job to ask. It's no more her job to tell you that than to tell you she doesn't wax her crotch, or that she took a three-way in college or that she likes to listen to Prince ballads when she masturbates. If you care, you're the weird one, and it's your responsibility to not slam your dick in the oven.
Default position for any straight man (since straight has been emphasized so many times here) is to score with the girl what looks like the girl. Not to wonder if she might have had secret testes and then to get all freaked out at yourself for wondering. Her chromosomes never come up before you bed her. If you find out later, you either are rational about it or you assume one of two defensive positions: "She was pretty hot" versus "I got the blowjob; I'm not gay."

I've solved your problems.
posted by klangklangston at 8:13 PM on January 4, 2006

You do know he's a man, right?
Just thought that before you kiss his ass, he had an obligation to disclose.
posted by klangklangston at 8:15 PM on January 4, 2006

Now that's just rude.
posted by Justinian at 8:28 PM on January 4, 2006

Klangklangston: The difference is that it's anti-semitic and bad to hate Jews and be a neo-nazi. It's not homophobic and bad to feel weird about having sex with someone with an intersexed individual. So the two things are not equivalent.

One is a bad thing, one is not a bad thing. Not the same.
posted by Justinian at 8:30 PM on January 4, 2006

should be "having sex with an intersexed individual" above. Must. Use. Preview.
posted by Justinian at 8:32 PM on January 4, 2006

It's not homophobic and bad to feel weird about having sex with someone with an intersexed individual.

No, but it will be 100 years from now. And rightly so.
posted by mediareport at 9:09 PM on January 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry, I meant 20 years from now. (Faster faster and all that...)
posted by mediareport at 9:10 PM on January 4, 2006

I wish you would all quit telling people what to think. There are very interesting debates to be had around this topic, none of them involve the kind of brow beating going on here, it's ugly.

orthogonality's comment here is a reasonable answer to the question. You or I might not agree with it, but we aren't going to find a correct answer to this question, just strategies to make pollystark's life better.

So what is my answer... I tend to agree with Mitheral, I wouldn't go around fucking someone I didn't care a lot about, and I would expect the same from the person on the other end of my genitals. That kind of makes most of the discussion so far completely pointless.

To the extent that pollystark is asking for advice on how to have more one night stands, I can only advise against it. That probably wouldn't warrant a comment in an AskMe thread. Which is why I didn't answer it, I guess, even though I tend to put myself in the middle of every conversation I see. But that is just a cop out...

The idea of ambiguous gender does bother me, but that kind of icky feeling relates to porn, not real people. I try to respect the people I interact with and I expect that respect to be returned.

Just to beat the point completely into the ground...

klangklangston: So, if a Neo-Nazi found out that he had engaged in casual sex with a Jew, she had a responsibility to disclose her religion first, because this is the real world, not some ideal. Would you go further? If she doesn't disclose and someone beats her up, is it her fault?

I would council her to avoid any contact with neo-Nazis, it might be hazardous to her health. To the extent that delicate questioning and conversation would reveal the neo-Nazi tendencies of her potential fuck buddy, I would advise her to pursue the matter as far as practical without putting herself at further risk.

a) you're thinking too much to appreciate getting laid at all, ...
If you care, you're the weird one,

Ya, well... I appreciate getting laid just fine, but I have to concede that my thinking does severely limit my opportunities. I guess it is because I'm weird...
posted by Chuckles at 9:32 PM on January 4, 2006

I'm sure most people aren't reading this anymore, but I just wanted to add to the discussion on whether genetics = gender. It seems like the syndrome in question comes about because of a lack of receptors, so think of it this way - the DNA is the blueprint, the plan for what the person will be, but the plan must be implemented. If the information is not being received, it can't be implemented - if the DNA says, develop masculine characteristics, but the information is not received and hence those characteristics are never developed, in what sense is masculinity actually existent? If the architect designs a townhouse but the deaf construction workers build a ranch house, what is actually there at the end of the day?
posted by mdn at 9:41 PM on January 4, 2006

I wish you would all quit telling people what to think.

Are we allowed to say what *we* think? Or is that too discomfiting?
posted by mediareport at 9:47 PM on January 4, 2006

The initial blueprints specify something and some subcontracter's blueprints get it wrong and it's built that way. Is it "really" what's in the architect's blueprints, or what's built? If it has a bathtub in it, is it a bathroom? If it's 20'x20' and has no other plumbing? If it looks like a closet but it's got a sign over it that says "garage", is it a garage? If the plans say "garage" where the closet is?

Or the plans say it's a living room, the contracters build it properly, but the owners use it as a big bedroom, is it still a living room? If it's used as a bedroom and a living room? But has no bed?

There's no arguing against the notion that what a house is designed to be it very likely is; but it's wrong to claim that this alone tells you what it actually is. When does a bedroom become a alternate TV room?

This metaphor is appropriate because these "rooms" in a house are things which are determined by some complex mix of their design, convention, and actual function; and if someone wants to hook their essentialist definition of a sort of room on one of these characteristics independent of the others, that person's going to face the opposition of those who find one or both of the other characteristics pre-eminent or exclusive.

And yet...

...if you take fifty Americans to an American house and into a room, the majority of them will very likely agree on a designation for the room. And I'll tell you one thing: none of those fifty Americans made that determination based upon the plans.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:02 PM on January 4, 2006

EB, you keep hitting on the same empty points. your argument amounts to: "because there are other things people don't have to disclose, she doesn't have to disclose this." that's nonsense and has no basis in either reality or this discussion. her disorder affects the sexual act. the reason why it does will come up when it happens, and she asked a specific choiced question: do I a) dodge the situation altogether b) tell or c) engage in as much of the activity as I can without hurting myself but not tell. it's not all in anyone's head, and her choice is specifically between honesty and a form of deception. it sucks. I feel bad for her. I hope she figures out a way to deal with these situations more easily that is also honest. But it's still a choice between honesty and deception, and I choose honesty.

furthermore, your unencumbered examples aren't representative or even realistic. here's a tip: if you can't explain what you mean without talking about a hypothetical world free of STDs where the situation is suddenly between two completely unrelated people in a completely different situation, THEN IT'S NOT A COMPARABLE EXAMPLE. same thing with you consistently bringing up race. it, too, is not a comparable example. why? because people's sexual issues aren't the same as racism. this isn't about homophobia. it's about needing to be able to make one's own sexual partnership decisions honestly. do you honestly think every 17 year old (or however old we're talking about here) or even every 30 year old is comfortable enough with their own sexuality to understand the implications of sleeping with someone who has a disorder they've probably never even heard of? people have sexual issues of all kinds for all reasons, and while we may not want them to feel that way about pollystark, the simple fact is that not all of the reasons for feeling that way are evil or homophobic so much as they are misguided and unfortunate. so what, do we just keep them in the dark? or do we do the REASONABLE thing and talk about it?

see, the reason it's about disclosure is because pollystark specifically asked what to do in a situation which she is aware will bring up issues with her partner, and she specifically offered a choice between honesty and deception. for herself, AND for her partner, honesty seems the best policy here. no, I don't think it's cool to have a problem with pollystark's disorder. but her partner didn't come into askme wondering what to do. pollystark did, so we have to deal with HER side of this. HER side of this is about whether or not to be open and honest with her partner. you can side with lying all you want, but don't pretend like there aren't perfectly valid reasons for disclosure, here, because there are. you're making a whole lot of judgements about people you've never met, here, and somewhere along the way your forgot that there's a difference between saying "I think it's ok not to disclose" and "THERE'S NO WAY DISCLOSURE IS OK YOU HOMOPHOBES!"
posted by shmegegge at 10:23 PM on January 4, 2006

"her disorder affects the sexual act."

No more than my incredibly large penis affects mine. But I don't feel I have a responsibility to disclose this to possible sex partners.

"...it's about needing to be able to make one's own sexual partnership decisions honestly."

But in the spirit of honesty and trust, I suppose I can be forthcoming about my incredibly large penis, if I must.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:33 PM on January 4, 2006

I'm gonna go ahead and take that as a white flag on your part.
posted by shmegegge at 10:41 PM on January 4, 2006

do you honestly think every 17 year old (or however old we're talking about here) or even every 30 year old is comfortable enough with their own sexuality to understand the implications of sleeping with someone who has a disorder they've probably never even heard of?

I can't even imagine what those implications could possibly be. Choosing not to tell someone something that they haven't asked about and that isn't going to do them any harm is not dishonesty, it's judgement.

Also, this callout was stupid, and the comment in question was completely valid.
posted by bingo at 10:49 PM on January 4, 2006

"I'm gonna go ahead and take that as a white flag on your part."

If you do, that's on a par with your other determinative faculties.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:05 PM on January 4, 2006

"It's not homophobic and bad to feel weird about having sex with someone with an intersexed individual."

It is if the "intersex" is limited to a tight pussy and a missing chromosome leg.

"No more than my incredibly large penis affects mine. But I don't feel I have a responsibility to disclose this to possible sex partners."

I feel a personal responsibility to disclose my incredibly large penis to everyone in the bar, but that's limited my ability to have casual sex. Please hope me, AskMe!
posted by klangklangston at 11:40 PM on January 4, 2006

If I Had An Anus writes "I'm curious, did you see orthogonality's deleted comment?"

None of my comments were deleted. The deleted coment was a comment directed at me.
posted by orthogonality at 12:39 AM on January 5, 2006

Ethereal Bligh : "No more than my incredibly large penis affects mine. But I don't feel I have a responsibility to disclose this to possible sex partners."

Well, if your incredibly large penis was a penis transplant from Hitler, then I guess you don't. Sure, there are some folks who would get squicked out by being fucked by Hitler's penis, but really, a penis is just a penis, and what made Hitler bad was the wiring of his brain, not the cells of his dong. If someone doesn't want to be fucked by a transplanted penis just because it used to be Hitler's, they're the weird ones, so they're responsible for asking whose penis you have before sex.
posted by Bugbread at 2:08 AM on January 5, 2006

Adolph Hitler's penis cures cancer.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 2:29 AM on January 5, 2006

None of my comments were deleted.

More's the pity. 'Chiahuaha', indeed. (Note: one can be a prick, regardless of one's genetic makeup.)
posted by holgate at 3:45 AM on January 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

None of my comments were deleted.

My bad. For some reason when I returned to the thread I thought there was a hole where the "Genetically, you're male" comment was.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 4:11 AM on January 5, 2006

I fully and completely support full disclosure about Ethereal Bligh's incredibly large penis.

klangklangston: That's a strawman. It's not a "tight pussy" and a "missing chromosone leg". It's a (often, we don't know in this case) surgically constructed vagina, male XY chromosones, hormone therapy to support feminization, undescended testicles, quite possibly several other abnormalities, plus self-admitted confusion on the part of the party in question about her own gender, sexual identity, and sexual orientation.

If you wan't to argue none of that means diddly squat, go for it, but cut it out with the strawman. We're talking about a significant batch of issues to deal with, not some arcane and trivial genetic quirk like having one blue eye and one brown eye.
posted by Justinian at 4:26 AM on January 5, 2006

bugbread writes "Well, if your incredibly large penis was a penis transplant from Hitler, then I guess you don't."

This is one of the weirdest Godwin's I've ever seen.
posted by Mitheral at 6:30 AM on January 5, 2006

It's things like the "incredibly large penis" comment that cry out for an <object> tag, but I don't know how you'd get the screeching brakes sound to delay until someone saw that comment.
posted by yerfatma at 6:40 AM on January 5, 2006

delmoi: Can someone with XX have a penis? (I'm guessing no)

Actually, yes. A rare transposition from the Y chromosome to the X.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:52 AM on January 5, 2006

surgically constructed vagina,

If her vagina was 'surgically constructed' due to some totally gender-neutral birth defect (something just got fused together or something), would you need to know?

hormone therapy to support feminization,

If she was on hormones because of ovarian cancer, would it make a difference?

male XY chromosones, ...undescended testicles, quite possibly several other abnormalities,

it's this essentialism that's so weird about this. DNA is not destiny; as I said above, it's the plan, but it is possible for the plan to get flubbed along the way. It is only through modern science that we can even work out what the original plan was and how some of the details of the house got confused along the way. These details would be completely unknown to you in your actual physical interaction with her. If you're attracted to her and enjoy fooling around, what's the problem?
posted by mdn at 9:08 AM on January 5, 2006

if it is all in someone's head, it's still a big enough deal to merit disclosure

I'm sure that's the exact position many would have taken 100 years ago with regards to people of black ancestry 'passing' and I'm sure it has exactly the same validity and merit.
posted by phearlez at 9:19 AM on January 5, 2006

Justinian: If you want to play, you have to learn to use the term "straw man" correctly. Alas and alack, I doubt you will, as you've seen no need to learn anything during this entire debate.
I'll ask again: Where is the harm? You're the one making suppositions about her hormonal regime (which have previously been explained as necessary to keep the onset of menopausal symptoms from occurring, not to ensure feminization) and her vagina. That she questions her sexual identity is meaningless, unless you want to have everyone who's ever had same sex thoughts disclose that before sex. And the XY chromosomes are meaninless because there's no way to tell. If a forged painting brings you pleasure, enjoy the painting regardless of the signature.
But knock off the apoplexy over a "straw man" that doesn't exist. I'm not ascribing an argument to you, dufus, and it only makes you look more hysterical and out of touch.
posted by klangklangston at 9:21 AM on January 5, 2006

These XX males (usually with the SRY factor swapped from the Y chromosome to the X chromosome) are highly masculinized but infertile men. There is another subset of XX men with no SRY at all. These SRY men have more genital and morphological ambiguity than SRY positive men, with a very few of them being true hermaphrodites.

The internal testes possesed by XY women make them into women by secreting enough estrogen to do a fine job. Unfortunately, these same testes in utero secrete MIS, a substance that shuts down development of the uterus, fallopian tubes and cervix, rendering them infertile.

The internal testes, and later the descended testicles of SRY positive XX men, produce a lot of testosterone, leading to normal male development, but no spermatogenesis, leading to sterility.

SRY positive XX men and XY women with cAIS start off with nominally the same gonads, but the final results are vastly different for each type of person. That one aspect of the genetic blueprint is powerful, true, and usually leads to a person whose sexual attributes are all either male or femals. But that one element of the blueprint isn't the whole blueprint. Sex is not simply a matter of having XX or XY chromomes, full stop.
posted by maudlin at 9:33 AM on January 5, 2006

klangklangston: You're setting up an easily demolished position, demolishing it, and then declaring victory, That's definitely close enough to a straw man fallacy for government work.

Why should I bother replying to your question when you do nothing but get all hostile and call people names despite the fact that *everyone else* has declare peace and is arguing rationally and civilly?
posted by Justinian at 10:38 AM on January 5, 2006

Justinian: Aww. You won't answer my questions because I keep making fun of you? Poor baby.

Just because your position is easily demolished doesn't mean that it's a straw man to present it as such. You keep assuming that there's some sort of normative essentialism here without offering any proof, and refuse to state where the harm comes from.

The dialogue goes like this, Justinian: "It IS homophobic to feel weirded out about having sex with someone because of a genetic defect that if you were ignorant of would make absolutely no difference in your enjoyment of the act."

"But also, she's on hormones!"

"How does that hurt anyone?"

"Straw man and also you're mean!"

(If your irony-sense tingles, it's because I'm now much loser to a straw man argument, but since you haven't put forth anything but "She's GENETICALLY MALE! OH NOES!" I don't really feel that there's any way to represent your argument both briefly and rationally. As far as being "respectful," well, your ideas on this topic are irrational and emotional, but I'm sure you're a well-meaning person and worth listening to on other topics. That doesn't mean that I should stop making fun of your bullshit though.)
posted by klangklangston at 12:06 PM on January 5, 2006

klang, you're kinda being a prick, yo. Pretty much everyone else has been acting civil and respectful for the last while.
posted by cortex at 12:18 PM on January 5, 2006

All right. Fair enough. I apologize.
posted by klangklangston at 12:21 PM on January 5, 2006

Then I'll answer your question:

Once again, I don't know pollystark. I'm unlikely to ever meet pollystark. What she does or does not do has no bearing on me personally. But in the real world, there are people who will react in the fashion I'm describing, and some of them will be far more angry if they feel they have been "deceived".

My position is that being honest from the start is correct from both an ethical and utilitarian points of view. You disagree with the ethical argument. Fine. But from a utilitarian point of view, pollystark is setting herself up for a world of hurt if she isn't honest.

You can see from her blog how much it bothered her when a couple people on an anonymous website reacted with something other than pure "you go girl!". Now imagine her reaction when she comes clean with someone she cares about and is met with shock or even anger.

She's clearly not emotionally ready for that, and she shouldn't risk it. If you reject the ethical argument that people should be able to make their own decisions with regard to what causes them harm or not, you still have to grapple with the fact that not being honest from the start is at best emotionally dangerous and at worst physically dangerous.
posted by Justinian at 12:29 PM on January 5, 2006

(As to specifically "where's the harm"... well, to me there probably wouldn't be any. But we're not talking about me, we're talking about a hypothetical "other". You're still making this personal, I'm talking about a random theoretical person.)
posted by Justinian at 12:30 PM on January 5, 2006

Mitheral : "This is one of the weirdest Godwin's I've ever seen."

I don't think it's technically a Godwin. A Godwin is when you're comparing someone to Hitler because you think they have some sort of similarity ("That's the kind of thing Hitler would say"). Mine is just gratiuitous use of "Hitler" in an example. I don't actually believe that EB's penis is Hitlerlike, and my example wasn't meant to give that impression.

klangklangston : "If a forged painting brings you pleasure, enjoy the painting regardless of the signature. "

That was a bit of an unfortunate analogy (perhaps as unfortunate as my Hitler's penis analogy). I suspect (hope) that most MeFites would agree that you shouldn't sell a forged painting as an original to someone else, even if in the end it looks the same. I'm not saying this situation is the same as a forged painting. And, I hope, you're not saying it either, because if you are, you've picked a comparison that makes a hell of a lot of logical sense (I, like you (I assume), don't understand why people prefer "real" paintings to really good, and cheaper, forgeries, or why people prefer "real" brand goods to really good, and cheaper, forgeries), but people do, and most folks (not everyone) would take the position that selling a forgery as the real thing is a bad thing.

So, perhaps we should pretend that analogy wasn't made.
posted by Bugbread at 12:32 PM on January 5, 2006

The persons responsible for the analogy have been sacked.
posted by Justinian at 12:47 PM on January 5, 2006

bugbread writes "I don't think it's technically a Godwin. "

Yes, that is what this thread needs, more hair splitting :).
posted by Mitheral at 1:53 PM on January 5, 2006

The persons responsible for the analogy have been sacked.

Yes, sacked, much in the same way that, for example, five pounds of potatoes are packaged for easy handling by retail consumers.
posted by cortex at 1:56 PM on January 5, 2006

I feel the need to be truly honest and upfront. My penis isn't really "incredibly large". It's merely credibly large.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:24 PM on January 5, 2006

Ethereal Bligh : "My penis isn't really 'incredibly large'. It's merely credibly large."

I can't believe that.
posted by Bugbread at 3:01 PM on January 5, 2006

It must be incredibly large. Otherwise, you'd be below-average. And we can't have that.
posted by yerfatma at 3:03 PM on January 5, 2006

If I ever find out that someone I've slept with is one of those goddamn essentialist freaks I'm going to fucking go apeshit.
posted by cytherea at 6:18 PM on January 5, 2006

I'm sure that's the exact position many would have taken 100 years ago with regards to people of black ancestry 'passing' and I'm sure it has exactly the same validity and merit.

well, someone had to say something that stupid.

listen, no one here is saying that it's ok for people to have a problem with pollystark's gender issues. people are saying disclosure is important, even if they're disclosing to an asshole/sexist/homophobe whatever. on top of that, I posit that just because a person has a problem with pollystark's sexuality doesn't mean they're homophobic or evil, so much as they no doubt have their own deeply seated sexual issues that get in the way of their own understanding. the next time you want to wantonly go around accusing people of racism/sexism/homophobia because they disagree with you, by all means feel free to go ahead and fuck yourself instead.
posted by shmegegge at 6:40 PM on January 5, 2006

This Hitler penis, it has a little mustache like pubic hair patch and hates minorities?
posted by Balisong at 10:20 PM on January 5, 2006

No, but it only has one ball.
posted by Justinian at 11:05 PM on January 5, 2006

people are saying disclosure is important
Actually, most seem to be saying that it's context-dependent: while it's appropriate for a serious, long-term relationship, there's no need for a brief fling.

I posit that just because a person has a problem with pollystark's sexuality doesn't mean they're homophobic or evil, so much as they no doubt have their own deeply seated sexual issues that get in the way of their own understanding
I posit that it is precisely the special fear of being considered a faggot by others that produces such terrified, rationality-challenged pleas for prior disclouse.

the next time you want to wantonly go around accusing people of racism/sexism/homophobia because they disagree with you, by all means feel free to go ahead and fuck yourself instead.
While that is tempting, I think it behooves civilized, reasonable people to point out and denounce racism/sexism/homophobia when and wherever it shows its ugly face.
posted by cytherea at 12:28 AM on January 6, 2006

I posit that it is precisely the special fear of being considered a faggot by others that produces such terrified, rationality-challenged pleas for prior disclouse.

I posit that it isn't such a special fear of being considered a faggot by others that produces such pleas.

I think it behooves civilized, reasonable people to point out and denounce racism/sexism/homophobia when and wherever it shows its ugly face.

I agree, and presume shmegegge does as well. After all, shmegegge is not saying "the next time you want to wantonly go around accusing people of racism/sexism/homophobia because they are racist/sexist/homophobic, by all means feel free to go ahead and fuck yourself instead", he is saying "the next time you want to wantonly go around accusing people of racism/sexism/homophobia because they disagree with you, by all means feel free to go ahead and fuck yourself instead".
posted by Bugbread at 2:55 AM on January 6, 2006

thanks, bugbread.

cytherea: the word "people," for what it's worth, does not imply everyone in a discussion. it implies more than one person. since I am speaking for the side that argues for disclosure, I think it's a safe assumption that I'm only talking about people arguing for the same thing I am.

also, you're arguing that people who think discourse is important are homophobes when, as has been said over and over again in here, no one has been arguing that pollystark is a man for some time. ortho was, but he hasn't been in here in some time. I argued that almost every man pollystark encountered would, having no proper knowledge of the condition, assume that balls and xy = man, when told about it. and if they found out about it AFTER having sex, they would be upset at the deception, and rightly so, even IF they had no problem with her gender issues. and if they DID have a problem with her gender issues, then that's precisely the kind of person she shouldn't be fucking in the first place. who she fucks is her business, obviously, but she did ask us for advice.

and last: it's an easy position to take to say that anyone who has the slightest bit of squeamishness about their own sexuality and the sexuality of people they encounter is a homophobe. it's a lot more difficult to remember that homophobia, racism and sexism are all things that are societally ingrained in us. some of us are fortunate enough to have the kind of ideal raising environment that they've been successfully able to resist all the little pressures society exerts on us to assign various races, sexes and preferences a prescribed role in the world. some of us don't even feel the pressure any more, although I've never met those people. The rest of us still feel those pressures every day and simply don't let them influence our actions. When we feel the effect of the advertising, mass media and personal peer pressure that tells us to be afraid of being gay or whatever, we either try to acknowledge it and deal with it for what it is or we ignore it and then jump up on our high horses whenever we hear about homophobia or sexism because we don't want to acknowledge that we're subject to the same fears everyone else is.

Maybe it makes you feel better about yourself to call people homophobes just for acknowledging that gender and sexual issues are complicated and merit disclosure. I don't know. either way, you're still wrong and you still need to get over yourself.
posted by shmegegge at 7:20 AM on January 6, 2006

EB: While you could use the term "kayrotype" to talk about gender diffrences (because you can see the diffrence between XY and XX in a microscope) you would be better to use the term "genotype" when talking about race.
posted by delmoi at 7:33 AM on January 6, 2006

In other words phenotype = what you look like, genotype = your DNA kayrotype = what your DNA looks like (after being stained)
posted by delmoi at 7:34 AM on January 6, 2006

I won't agree that she has a responsibility to disclose. There are any number of things that might bother someone greatly with regard to who they sleep with, and no one is advocating they be disclosed before sex, too. I think race is an excellent example—it's a difference that exists mostly in the other person's head.

Well, the diffrence between a "true" man and a woman is also in people's heads as well, no? Why is is someone else's desire not to sleep with someone with an XY karyotype any diffrent then someone else's desire not to sleep with someone with a penis in that respect? There are some physiological differences.
posted by delmoi at 7:46 AM on January 6, 2006

"Why is is someone else's desire not to sleep with someone with an XY karyotype any diffrent then someone else's desire not to sleep with someone with a penis in that respect?"
Because she doesn't have a penis?

And Schmegege: Protecting bigots from ugly moral moments isn't the job of someone looking for casual sex. And even if it's social forces, that's no different from the argument against sleeping with a one-drop minority. She has no balls now, the only difference is the pussy and the chromosome (confidentially to those lecturing, when you decry other people as ignorant, try not to repeatedly misspell chromosome as chromosone).
posted by klangklangston at 9:07 AM on January 6, 2006

klangklangston, you're not paying attention, and stop being an asshole. confidentially to those addressing me, there's no c in my name. you know, so long as we're snarking about spelling errors and all.

as far as protecting bigots:

w e 'v e g o n e o v e r t h i s .

a lot. so stop being a prick. again.
posted by shmegegge at 10:08 AM on January 6, 2006

also, you're arguing that people who think discourse is important are homophobes when,
Please.

as has been said over and over again in here, no one has been arguing that pollystark is a man for some time.
Since you don't think she's a man, then you must not be homophobic?

I argued that almost every man pollystark encountered would, having no proper knowledge of the condition, assume that balls and xy = man, when told about it. and if they found out about it AFTER having sex, they would be upset at the deception, and rightly so, even IF they had no problem with her gender issues.
Oh wait! She's a woman, and you're attracted enough to fuck her, but then, if you find out she's secretly a man (even though we all agree she's a woman) you would be so terribly traumatized (because you just fucked a man (even though she's a woman)) that this must be prevented at all costs. It's better she be humiliated with special disclosure rules that no one else has to follow then you be have to worry about the trauma cloud formed from the possibility that the girl you're pounding is secretly a guy (even though we agree she's not).

Well, thank god that's not homophobia.

and if they DID have a problem with her gender issues, then that's precisely the kind of person she shouldn't be fucking in the first place.
She can fuck who she likes.

who she fucks is her business, obviously, but she did ask us for advice.
Of course. And there are going to be different opinions. And some I'm going to find offensive yet amusing at the same time.
posted by cytherea at 11:09 AM on January 6, 2006

I wrote:_{Why is is someone else's desire not to sleep with someone with an XY karyotype any diffrent then someone else's desire not to sleep with someone with a penis in that respect?}

klang write:
^{Because she doesn't have a penis?}

Er, that doesn't even make sense. What part of not wanting to sleep with people who have penises isn't "all in your head"? All sexual desires and distastes are entirely in people's heads.

Why is one distaste more important then another distaste? Why is one distaste "bigoted" while another is not?

What things do think it's acceptable to discriminate sexually based on, and what things are unacceptable? What is a universal measure that you could use?

Basically all you're saying is that because some people are grossed out by something, and you're not, they're all bigots.
posted by delmoi at 11:12 AM on January 6, 2006

I'm grossed out by smoking but not by eating meat. All you folks who only want relationships with vegetarians are bigots.
posted by Justinian at 11:31 AM on January 6, 2006

I'm grossed out by smoking but not by eating meat. All you folks who only want relationships with vegetarians are bigots.

BZZT! Thanks for playing! However the discussion has always been about disclosure to people before casual sex, so use of the word 'relationship' makes no sense in this context.

Glad you threw up the smoker example, however, since that's a very good analogy. I don't sleep with smokers because they stink. However if I met one in a bar who managed somehow not to have breath that smells like a dirty ashtray, fucked her then was upset afterwards when I discovered she smoked even though I couldn't tell any other way than being told, would you think I'm an asshole? Yeah, I would too.

The only difference here is that a lot more people would yell OH NOES NOW I AM TEH GEY if they discovered afterwards about this genetic fluke, even if they never would have known if not told. It's not her responsibility to coddle jerks if she doesn't want to.
posted by phearlez at 11:54 AM on January 6, 2006

delmoi, did I use the word karyotype with regard to race? Well, although I wasn't sure what the word meant when this discussion started, I'm clear on it now and I don't think I would have intended to relate karyotype and race. But I would claim that karyotype is no less valid with regard to "race" as genotype is, because race isn't found in the genotype, as well.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:35 PM on January 6, 2006

Okay, you guys, I don't know why this is so complicated. My argument has been:

A) For most people in the world, past and present, pollystark is to them a woman with an unusual vagina who cannot reproduce. Her genetics, including the karyotype, is, to them, an arcane character trait they've never heard of and wouldn't care about if they did.

This point is intended to assert that the form of essentialism being embraced here is extraordinarily arcane and thus not at all comparable to, for example, transexuals or even an ambiguous intersexed male with genitalia modified for a female.

This being the case, the onus is on those who object to a lack of disclosure because their assumption that this is something most people would care about is false. Most people would not care about this. Yes, a subpopulation does care about this—specifically, those like themselves who place paramount importance on XX/XY sex definition—but they haven't proven that pollystark is more likely than not to have sex with people like themselves who care. Additionally, since pollystark and others like myself are arguing that they shouldn't care, those favoring disclosure also must prove that there is some basis on which to favor what she perceives as participating in bigotry against herself rather than opposing it. In this regard the racial comparison is also apt.

B) The second point I've and others have made is that even if most people were aware of the significance of karyotype and used it to primarily define sex, they'd be wrong to use it to primarily define sex this way as it's true that it's the "primary instruction" for sexual differentiation but, even so, what is actually physiologically manifested as sexual differentiation is clearly the basis on which to determine sexual identification and thus believing that the XX/XY differentiation is primary and sufficient to define actual sexual differentiation is irrational and false. Thus, it cannot be the basis of any argument favoring disclosure because such an argument is necessarily irrational.

C) Implicit in the prior arguments, but worth isolating, is that the degree to which the sexual partner deeply cares about this characteristic cannot by itself determine the responsibility to disclose. If it were, then any number of traits, such as "race", would also be necessarily needs be disclosed and most of us here reject that assertion.

D) Assuming as proven that this distinction is both understood only by a small minority and is, furthermore, not a rational basis on which to exclusively define sexual identification, the motivation for such a deep concern for being informed of this trait is brought to the fore.

While it's the case that "race" is almost entirely invalid as a biological concept and thus is not really of the same kind of thing as "sex"; it is the case that there is a similarity between the two because both are assumed by most to be simplistically and entirely determined by genotype and both are assumed to be essential and fundamental and entirely defined by the genotype.

This is an abstract relationship that does not require either an evident physiological distinction nor a functional distinction necessary to determine identification. The genotype is both necessary and sufficient. In this sense, then, what is actually at stake and deeply important to those favoring disclosure is an abstract essential social identification and their relationship with it. So it is quite relevant and valid to ask "Why is this abstract, social identification so darn important to them?" And the answer is clearly how their own social identity is affected by their sexual relationship with this person. Simply put, there is a social taboo—anachronistic and residual, highly visible and unqestionable, or somewhere in between—that is being violated. And we have words for those people who believe that they must conform to these mores. "Racist" is one, "homophobic" is another.

Some here have asserted that my arguments have just tautological, assertions that prove my conclusion. But this is not true: I've made arguments with falsifiable assertions about whether it matters, whether it should matter, why many strongly believe that it does matter, and built the larger argument from these. Those arguing the other position have simply argued that this distinction does matter and thus the person has a moral obligation to not deceive the other. That is an insufficient argument. It's simply an assertion.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:13 PM on January 6, 2006

Way to go, Bligh.

"I'm grossed out by smoking but not by eating meat. All you folks who only want relationships with vegetarians are bigots."

That whoosh you heard was the point sailing past you. I'm a vegetarian, and I don't want to date a woman who eats meat regularly. But if I can't tell and fuck her, I'm not gonna be all "OH NOES!" if she turns out to be a meat eater.

And Shmegege: Repeatedly asserting an incorrect presumption does not make you right. Stop being an asshole.
posted by klangklangston at 1:39 PM on January 6, 2006

EB: Your last paragraph is false. You *are* begging the question. It's right there at the top of your argument in part A). You're asserting that most people wouldn't care and then saying "because most people wouldn't care, it follows that...".

So A) is a blanket assertion on your part. You do not "prove" it, you assert it with no evidence whatsoever. I don't agree with your premise. I think if you randomly selected 100 American men between the ages of, say, 20 and 50 that most of them would say they wouldn't knowingly have sex with someone with AIS if you present it accurately and not just mentioned the chromosome thing. Everything that follows from A) is this begging the question.

B) is also false. It is not just a weird genetic quirk and an unusual vagina. There are other MAJOR factors involved, both physical (surgical removal of undescended testicles, hormone therapy, possibly significant body type differences apart from the vagina), up to and including the self-admitted confusion of the party in question about gender issues, her own sexuality and leanings in that regard, and so on. Saying that AIS is simply an unimportant chromosomal oddity is patently false.

C) is true but trivial. Of course that something is important to one party cannot be the only determining factor. But it is a continuum. Obviously you would have to, ethically, tell someone if you have an STD. Obviously you would not have to tell someone if you voted for Ralph Nader, even if they might possibly care about it. You're positing that this case falls closer to the Ralph Nader example because of your assertion in A) that most people wouldn't care. But I've already pointed out that A) is probably false.

D) is false because, well, you haven't proven anything above nor shown that such a concern would be irrational. Asserting that you have is all well and good, but you haven't.

I wouldn't call your arguments tautological, I'd call them fallacious. They rest on axioms that range from unproven to false. That most people wouldn't care is unproven and I think false. That even if people care it is irrational is, I think, false. The implication that the motivation is therefore something akin to homophobia is not only unsupported but insulting given the completely fallacious nature of your arguments leading up to it.

I'm a little bemused at your last paragraph where you take to task others for making unsupported assertions when your entire lengthy argument is one big pyramid resting on just such an assertion!
posted by Justinian at 1:54 PM on January 6, 2006

EB: You wrote

Racists assume there's something the equivalent to the karyotypal sex differentiation in the case of "race" and from this position they assert absolutes and use those to validate their bigotries.

Which re-reading doesn't specifically call "racial" differentiation karyotypal. It's a little ambiguous what you thought they "something" that racists thought existed was. I didn't know what Karyotype was before reading this thread either.
posted by delmoi at 2:09 PM on January 6, 2006

This point is intended to assert that the form of essentialism being embraced here is extraordinarily arcane and thus not at all comparable to, for example, transexuals or even an ambiguous intersexed male with genitalia modified for a female.

The thing is, I just don't think it's arcane at all. I learned about XY sexual differentiation in elementary school, and taught that that was "how it was". Human beings have a strong desire to avoid sexual taboos, the same way they do about what they eat and drink. There's an obvious evolutionary advantage to this.

Furthermore, unlike not eating stuff that tastes gross, sexual taboos are totally based on worldly knowledge passed on to you by society. A child learns the difference between men and women, and as they learn they incorporate this information into their idea of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman, and it informs their worldview.

Your insistence that the distinction is "arcane" is disingenuous. For a lot of people, it's very basic, core knowledge about gender and sexuality.

If you took a poll of average American men, I imagine that a good lot of them would feel that way. We don't know, but there are at least three people posting here who do. So yeah.

This being the case, the onus is on those who object to a lack of disclosure because their assumption that this is something most people would care about is false. .

Which is only valid if it is the case, which it clearly isn't.

B) The second point I've and others have made is that even if most people were aware of the significance of karyotype and used it to primarily define sex, they'd be wrong to use it to

Who are you to tell them that their worldview is wrong? I feel that people should be able to define sex, for their own sexual purposes however they want to.

And the answer is clearly how their own social identity is affected by their sexual relationship with this person. Simply put, there is a social taboo—anachronistic and residual, highly visible and unqestionable, or somewhere in between—that is being violated. And we have words for those people who believe that they must conform to these mores. "Racist" is one, "homophobic" is another.

Well, it's certainly true that for a person A there is a personal taboo against having homosexual sex with someone if A considers himself heterosexual. Now, you are claming that that also makes him homophobic. Which would then mean that every person who refuses too has sex with men is also homophobic, as far as I can tell. I don't think that's the way the word is commonly used. The commonly used term for a man who refuses to have sex with other men is "heterosexual".

---

Either way, it's nice to see this debate move away from stupid, blanket assertions of what's true and what's false.
posted by delmoi at 2:31 PM on January 6, 2006

"You do not prove it, you assert it with no evidence whatsoever."

I thought this point was obvious. Most people in the world do not know what an XX/XY karyotype distinction is, thus they don't care. I don't understand why I have to spell this out.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:37 PM on January 6, 2006

Because the XX/XY distinction isn't the only thing we're talking about. There are many other factors at issue. The hormone therapy for complete feminization. The surgically removed undescended testicles. The short blind-pouch or even sometimes completely surgically constructed vagina. Body and pubic hair abnormalities. Not to mention psychological issues relating to gender and sexuality. Your complete fixation on the XX/XY chromosomal stuff is convenient for your point but is disingenuous.

I submit that "what do you think about having sex with a woman who had a chromosomal abnormality" would for many men produce a different answer than "what do you think about having sex with a woman who had surgically removed undescended testes, a surgically constructed vagina, and unresolved issues about gender"

I don't understand why I have to spell this out.
posted by Justinian at 2:47 PM on January 6, 2006

But if I can't tell and fuck her, I'm not gonna be all 'OH NOES!' if she turns out to be a meat eater.

You point being...?

I don't think this is bigotry, just irrationality and thus she has no obligation to disclose. The degree to which the other party will be upset at some characteristic does not alone determine the obligation to disclose. You have to make an argument that a concern about that characteristic is reasonable.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:50 PM on January 6, 2006

Your complete fixation on the XX/XY chromosomal stuff is convenient for your point but is disingenuous.

I am "fixated" on that because polystark said that the abnormal vagina is the only manifestation that is manifest or would functionally matter to someone with which she has casual sex. The other characteristics you are assuming to bolster your argument.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:52 PM on January 6, 2006

I thought this point was obvious. Most people in the world do not know what an XX/XY karyotype distinction is, thus they don't care. I don't understand why I have to spell this out.

While most "people" may not, most Americans, I think, do.
posted by delmoi at 3:05 PM on January 6, 2006

Since we're spelling things out now. I simply don't accept as true the idea that "most" of the men she's thinking about sleeping with don't know what XX/XY means. Clearly everyone here knows what it meant, and like many people I learned what it meant in elementary school.
posted by delmoi at 3:07 PM on January 6, 2006

Being that this is a bit of knowledge that is available only via education, I think the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that the majority are taught this distinction and remember it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:08 PM on January 6, 2006

"Who are you to tell them that their worldview is wrong? I feel that people should be able to define sex, for their own sexual purposes however they want to."

I do not accept that relativism for the same reasons that I am certain you do not accept the relativism that says that racial discrimination must be tolerated because it is a worldview as valid as any other.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:11 PM on January 6, 2006

What of a racist who doesn't act out toward others based on his racist impulses?

I will tolerate the hell out of someone who disagrees with me nonviolently.
posted by cortex at 3:13 PM on January 6, 2006

Ethereal Bligh: By that logic, the XX/XY thing isn't obvious (for, well, obvious reasons) to someone having casual sex with polly either. So why are you talking about that and rejecting the other non-obvious things?

We're not talking about what is obvious, we're talking about what decision men would make if they had all the facts, obvious or not.
posted by Justinian at 3:29 PM on January 6, 2006

Let's be clear here: putting aside what is possible, lets suppose there was someone who had the Y chromosome but was in every other respect female. Physiology, ability to reproduce, everything. Would you still argue for disclosure?

If so, then that's a pure essentialist position that cannot really be argued for or against at this level because it is a fundamental assumption. If not, then we must be arguing that something beyond that Y chromosome matters and that that chromosome indicates its existence.

The problem here is that once you step away from the purely essentialist argument, all you're left with is the functional argument. And I think that this is not satisfactory to you because a functional argument could only have as its context the limitated conditions of that single casual sex act and, as such, a hypothetical where the sex act is not affected in the least but a Y chromosome is present could not be claimed to require disclosure. But you would argue otherwise.

This is where I'm arguing irrationality. Either you cop to the essentialist argument or you discard it.

If you try to defend the essentialist argument, you're opening yourself to being forced to accept the equivalent essentialist arguments involving race or any number of other things. And you don't want to do that.

For that reason you then move to a stance which validates an obligation for disclosure on the basis of how important this characteristic is to the other party, regardless of anything whatsoever about the characteristic aside from that it's present.

And so here we find ourselves accepting that a person's beliefs and feelings alone can determine how other people are obligated to interact with him. On what basis? There is the "psychological injury" argument. There is the "injury to social status" argument.

But again, you probably don't want to limit yourselves to those because they are vulnerable to the racism counter-argument.

Or maybe you are willing to do so and (correctly) see this as weighing against each other an individual person's right to not be made uncomfortable with another person's right not to be forced to behave according to someone else's arbitrary standard. When we do this, we try to evaluate the level of discomfort or hurt, and weight it against how we evaluate the justification for the discomfitting behavior.

In the case of racism, while a racist's discomfort and even injury may be very real, we believe that the social justice of refusing to act in accordance with the values that result in that discomfort are more important.

My argument is that, in itself, the XY status is not relevantly functional in the context of the question. My argument is that you are forced to accept my argument that it's not relevantly functional because the "no discernable difference during that single sex act" in your estimation still requires disclosure. My argument is that this results in the conclusion that you must be making an essentialist argument and, given this, you are either required to demonstrate that a majority agrees with your essentialist argument and thus you can initially assert the argument from majority; or that even if this is a minority viewpoint the injury that results in non-disclosure overwhelms whatever injury the disclosee sustains from disclosing.

The argument from authority is not sufficient by itself because, by itself, we know it's a fallacy. So if you assert and it is the case that a majority agree with your essentially standpoint, then we're again forced to determine whether we think the application of that viewpoint is just or unjust. So we're back to weighing hurts against each other.

Presumably, in the case of racism you'd argue that the hurt caused by forcing the person to disclose is much worse—either individually practically, or on the basis of social justice evaluations, or both—than the hurt the racist endures because of the lack of disclosure. And, presumably, you'd argue that in this case, the hurt endured by pollystark is less than the hurt of the sex partner and, additionally, there is no principle of social justice which needs be met with regard to pollystark's individual rights.

I would respond that I believe the examples are very similar because this essentialist assertion and the resulting behavior that is required both hurt pollystark practically more than a failure to disclose hurts the other party, and that there is a larger social justice issue involved here where injustice is implicitly furthered by requiring disclosure and justive is served by asserting that pollsystark has no obligation to disclose.

But in all of this, it simply isn't sufficient to make the claim that this distinction is both inherently important and manifest and that denying this results in more particular injustice both at the individual and societal level. That is not sufficient because it is identical to arguments from the past that took as given the essential of race and the primacy of the hurt caused to those to whom a status was not disclosed. You almsot certainly would not endorse those arguments. What everyone thinks is insufficient. What is important to everyone is insufficient.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:43 PM on January 6, 2006

E. Bligh: Well, there it is. Your position is that disclosure hurts pollystark more than a failure to disclose hurts the other party. I disagree; the other party has an essential and extremely personal liberty taken away by the failture to disclose. That essential liberty being the ability to give informed consent to something that is extremely relevant and material to the sexual act.

You're going to argue that AIS is not relevant and material to the sexual act. I'm going to assert that the majority of men would disagree with you. You'll disagree with that. Until and unless someone conducts a scientific poll of a random sample of heterosexual American men, we aren't going to resolve that point.
posted by Justinian at 5:17 PM on January 6, 2006

eb, the point isn't whether she's a man or not. she's not. she's a woman. the point is about whether it's a) beneficial to her to keep something a secret that's obviously going to come up in some way, since she clearly says so in the question. or b) fair to her partner to keep it a secret, whether or not the partner would ever find out otherwise.

as I said in the thread in question: it shouldn't matter whether the partner would ever find out. it's the same thing as arguing that cheating on a spouse is ok so long as they never find out, because whatever bothers them about it is all in their head anyway and if they can't handle a non-exclusive relationship that's their problem and it's their job to hound me about my sexual practices. there comes a point where it's a question of honesty vs dishonesty, and you have yet to even acknowedge that. you're harping on genetics that no one cares about since ortho dropped out of this days ago.

My argument is that, in itself, the XY status is not relevantly functional in the context of the question.

except for the entire reason the question was asked, right? you know, the part about how her vaginal canal was too small for penetrative sex? riiiiight, that part.

but let's be honest, you have no idea what this girl looks like, and what fooling around with her would be like. in fact, you are assuming (presumably because it supports your argument) that the entire incident would deviate in no way from typical heterosexual horseplay. but then, answer me this. does she have an adam's apple? I don't know. you don't know. in fact, you know nothing about her. correction: you know nothing about the situation whatsoever except that this girl has a condition with varied symptoms and conditions which may or may not fit the profile you've sworn by in your head.

this is one of the reasons that your argument that if the act isn't made any different, then it doesn't matter doesn't make even the slightest bit of sense. because you don't know if the act would be any different.

but hey, it's fine. keep harping on this peculiar moral relativism of yours where deception is ok so long as no one finds out.

as far as essentialism vs functionalism:

a hypothetical where the sex act is not affected in the least but a Y chromosome is present could not be claimed to require disclosure. But you would argue otherwise.

this is flatly untrue. I'm arguing, and I've read the same into justinian's posts, that we're saying that the sex act is obviously affected, and your hypothetical situations, are aimed at isolating some form of homophobia on our parts that isn't related.

so, even though I've already said it, I'll say it again. If everything about pollystark were girly but the chromosome, I'd still think she was a woman, and my argument would be entirely different, because it would be an entirely different situation, wholly inapplicable to this one. see? so now we know that you're operating on woefully false premises.

stop focusing on whether or not we're homophobes. we're talking about the moral value of her decision to be honest, and morals - whether you like it or not - aren't based on whether or not anyone finds out. they're based on what's right.

hating pollystark, being disgusted with her, all of that: not right.

also not right: deceiving her sexual partners. if you could give some reason why deceiving her sexual partners was ok that was based in reality, then you'd at least be engaging in the discussion at hand.
posted by shmegegge at 5:32 PM on January 6, 2006

and cythera:

seriously, go fuck yourself. you don't know what you're talking about, and your shrill accusations don't even support themselves.
posted by shmegegge at 5:32 PM on January 6, 2006

'scuse me. cytherea
posted by shmegegge at 5:33 PM on January 6, 2006

"I'm arguing, and I've read the same into justinian's posts, that we're saying that the sex act is obviously affected, and your hypothetical situations, are aimed at isolating some form of homophobia on our parts that isn't related.

The only context we have to argue this is pollystark's question where she describes the ways in which her XY status is evident. You insinuate that I'm willfully assuming something unlikely to support my argument. But I'm not, I'm rigorously staying within the confines the stated conditions. Furthermore, the example of an XX woman with a vagina the same as pollystark's has been raised and it's been repeatedly claimed that this is not comparable and it's the XY status that must be disclosed, not merely the status of her vagina.

I'm not sure whether you see this or not, but it's you who's assuming conditions which support your argument that you have to grounds upon which to assume. I suspect that you're being dishonest in doing so because I strongly suspect that if were we to systematically find that each one of your assumed characteristics other than the vagina do not exist, you'd not relenquish your position. You're sure there's something there that matters beyond the vagina and it's that something you're basing your argument upon. I question the motives for believing so strongly that there must be something else there that functionally matters.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:47 PM on January 6, 2006

You do say that you would relinquish your position if the XY was the only thing that was different. But I'm still suspicious because you're very comfortable there in your certainty that your argument will never be tested upon that premise so that's an easy point to concede. How about not only the Y chromosome, but also a variety of internal differences that a) don't affect the sex act, and b) are not discernable at all within the confines of that sex act? Would she still be required to disclose?

You're going to have to work very hard to convince me that these objections by you and others are not reducible to simply that someone is, or is not, a "man" and you have a right to know that before you sleep with them.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:54 PM on January 6, 2006

Being that this is a bit of knowledge that is available only via education, I think the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that the majority are taught this distinction and remember it.

Nope, the burden of proof is on you, sorry for the confusion.

Just to clarify, my actual position is that no one knows this, and we most start from the position that the number of people know this and feel this way is unknown, beyond the fact that a few people around here seem to know it, but that it's a resonable assumption that a lot of people do.
posted by delmoi at 6:52 PM on January 6, 2006

I don't get it, Ethereal Bligh. What's the difference what someone's position would be if the XY were the only difference? That's clearly not the case here. You seem to be playing a game of "gotcha!". There are more than enough differences in someone with AIS that a reasonable (read: non-homophobic) heterosexual male could conclude that he wouldn't have sex with someone with AIS.
posted by Justinian at 6:56 PM on January 6, 2006

Metafilter: playing a game of "gotcha!"
posted by Chuckles at 7:12 PM on January 6, 2006

EB: you make a very strong point.

Anyway, my position was never that disclosure was ethically required just that it was a good idea.

Lets look at this from a utilitarian standpoint. Rather then "race" it would be best to use the term "ancestry" Ancestry is a real, if undetectable thing. It's a true fact that some of the people in my family tree came from Africa in the past 300 years, but it's not necessarily true that I'm "black" from any kind of analytical analysis that only looks at current information.

We must assume homophobe, or even the racist must suffer sever emotional harm from being made aware of the fact that had sex with a person who had undetectable quality which they abhorred.

The proper way to analyze this is for pollystark to weigh the discomfort she feels in revealing this compared the probability that the other person would be hurt by post-facto disclosure, and how much pain the would feel. In other words is

If X was pollystarks discomfort
If Y was the discomfort a man would feel after sleeping with her
If N was the number of men that polystark had sex with.
And P(Y) was the probability that a particular man in polystark's social circle would feel that discomfort...

Then if X < y*p(y)*n then pollystark would increase the net discomfort in the world. it seems reasonable that p(y) is at least somewhat high. maybe as high as 0.1? maybe even more that. however, pollystark could reduce p(y) to zero, simply by informing people. br>
As far as the issue of ancestry: it's really hard for me to hide my ancestry, and I think the number of people who would be upset about "one drop" of a specific race are very, very low.

Your argument that some phobias are a-priori bad, and thus people who have them can be ignored is, IMO, silly.
posted by delmoi at 7:16 PM on January 6, 2006

We must also consider the fairness doctrine. That it is better to hurt yourself then it is to hurt someone else, which is what bugs me the most about this. She's talking about potentially harming completely innocent men. Your argument is that the only way they could be harmed is if they themselves were amoral for having those beliefs, and thus not innocent in the first place. I don't buy that, personally.
posted by delmoi at 7:19 PM on January 6, 2006

Furthermore, the example of an XX woman with a vagina the same as pollystark's has been raised and it's been repeatedly claimed that this is not comparable and it's the XY status that must be disclosed, not merely the status of her vagina

there's no must to this. no one is saying "pollystark has no choice." we're saying it's not right to hide something that a partner would want to know, even a casual one. when you understand that, you'll hopefully stop insisting that we all think she's a man, and that we're all homophobes.

You insinuate that I'm willfully assuming something unlikely to support my argument. But I'm not, I'm rigorously staying within the confines the stated conditions

he says shortly before he goes on to explain how hard I'll have to work to convince him I'm not a homophobe. whatever, EB. you're entrenched in this, and you'll either realize we're not biased against pollystark or you won't, but I'm obviously not going to convince you that I'm even being honest unless I retract everything I've said thus far and act like I agree with you, have always agreed with you, and can't see how anyone could possibly in any universe disagree with you.

You're going to have to work very hard to convince me that these objections by you and others are not reducible to simply that someone is, or is not, a "man" and you have a right to know that before you sleep with them.

funny thing. no I won't. good night, EB. I'd say it's been fun fighting with you about this, but it hasn't. it's been miserable, insulting and fruitless. I hope you got... whatever... you want out of this.
posted by shmegegge at 9:12 PM on January 6, 2006

"Your argument is that the only way they could be harmed is if they themselves were amoral for having those beliefs, and thus not innocent in the first place. I don't buy that, personally."

You won't accept that this applies in this case, or in every case? You won't accept that it applies in the case of racism?

Your utilitarian argument has a flaw because you're not accurately measuring the hurt that someone in polystark's position endures. If we look at the racism example, and in terms of, say, sitting in the front of the bus or at a lunch counter, we see that the similar argument is made by the racists that the hurt inflicted upon them by the association with a black person is greater than the hurt inflicted by not allowing a back person to sit elsewhere than the back of the bus or at another lunch counter. But I think most of us would agree that this particular judgment is quite obviously unsound and the truth is exactly the other way around: conforming to someone else's fears and discomfort's that you yourself don't share can actually and identifiably mean an infringment on one's own rights. This is the case with regard to my racism example.

And in that case, that judgment of harm to the black person will vary from person to person and certainly it was asserted by racists that the harm to the black person by such discrimination was minimal...or even that it benefitted him/her. The argument against the civil rights laws and that protect racial discrimination cases that remain today is the argument of a personal right to choose association which cannot be anything other than a less extreme version of the personal right to choose intimate association that you and others are positing.

Now, the language in the previous paragraph is legal and here we're talking about ethics and I think that in that sense the ethical purpose of limiting discrimination in this way is even more important to serve than is the narrow, legal purpose. That is to say, it may be legal (and is in the US) to have a country club that does not allow black people, but most of us regard it as unethical. And we're not saying it's unethical simply to discriminate, we're saying it's unethical to disriminate on that basis. I'm saying it's unethical to discriminate merely on the basis of kryotype for very similar reasons. It is a "distinction" that is more in the mind of those who perceive it than it can be supported empirically, and it is a distinction which significantly limits the activities of those branded with this label of that difference. As in racism, your right to discriminate is valid when either the race can demonstrably be proven to matter (such as choosing a subject for a particular portrait image) or be proven to cause a real—not merely claimed—harm to those who would be forced to not disrciminate on that basis that outweighs the sum total of both the hurt those so discriminated against along with the harm inflicted against social justice.

I believe I recall, and it seems to be the case here, that you're an extreme relativist so I imagine you will disagree with this argument. But given that probably the majority of people here are relativists but not extreme relativists and that they do, in fact, accept such arguments against racial discrimination, for example, I think your extreme relativist position is a special case. Anyway, I have never yet met a relativist that wouldn't make what is either explicitly or implicitly an absolutist argument about some act that other people may or may not engage. The defense is that the test is whether something "hurts other people" and whether some particular activity fails that test; but I assert that the number of acts so judged is fewer than most people suspect and, anyway, in the context of social interaction, it cannot be true if the action has any negative consequence whatsoever to the person so affected by that particular social action of another person.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:59 PM on January 6, 2006

It's interesting that a lot of the analogies being suggested are things which one might want to avoid for moral reasons - being intimate with hitler's penis or a meat-eater might be things people would avoid because of ethical misgivings. But the claim of the 'not that there's anything wrong with that' crowd is that they are not morally repulsed by homosexuality; they simply don't enjoy it themselves. The implication is that the particular pheremones etc that turn you on belong to the female gender, and that a guy would just not turn you on.

A good analogy might be how most people feel about fucking someone who's 50 years older than them. I am not morally opposed to 80 year olds getting their rocks off, but I don't really want to be involved. However, if I met someone who I found attractive, who to me looked around 30, and we hooked up and then he later told me, by the way, my hometown is this little place in the himilayas ... and it turned out he'd been alive for 80 years, I would not feel betrayed or upset that that hadn't been revealed. My only issue with sleeping with 80 year olds is the actual physical enjoyment. if men as a class automatically belong to your pool of 'not sexually interesting', then just don't sleep with people you don't find sexually interesting. if you don't sleep with men because you think it's morally wrong, then you have the right to know whether someone could technically, by your definition, be male, but then you are admitting to being a homophobe (ie, someone who thinks it's morally wrong to sleep with the same sex). if it's morally neutral and just a personal preference, then theoretically you could one day meet a guy who you were attracted to - it's just that as a rule and so far, you have not and it doesn't seem likely.
posted by mdn at 7:25 AM on January 7, 2006

Your utilitarian argument has a flaw because you're not accurately measuring the hurt that someone in polystark's position endures. If we look at the racism example, and in terms of, say, sitting in the front of the bus or at a lunch counter, we see that the similar argument is made by the racists that the hurt inflicted upon them by the association with a black person is greater than the hurt inflicted by not allowing a back person to sit elsewhere than the back of the bus or at another lunch counter.

No offense, but then all she has to do is not fuck people, or at least not fuck people who she doesn't feel comfortable disclosing this to. I mean, basically the argument is that she should be able to potentially hut people greatly just so she can enjoy having sex with them, which is incredibly selfish.

It's pleasure at the expense of others, which I think under most ethical systems is proscribed.

It isn't fair that pollystark was born with this condition, but that doesn't mean that she can simply be unfair to other people simply for her own pleasure.

Your basic position is that if they are harmed, then they are a homophobe, and therefore deserve to be hurt, which I just don't buy.
posted by delmoi at 8:12 AM on January 7, 2006

however, pollystark could reduce p(y) to zero, simply by informing people.

delmoi, you have my unending love for bothering to quantify that in formula. But!

let us presume there is another factor, y', which represents the discomfort any given potential sex partner would feel at having been informed, pre-sex, that he's about to bang (or not) an AIS individual.

And correspondingly, p'(y') the probability that the information presented will in fact cause that discomfort.

Then we need y * ( p(y) - p'(y') ) * n to track the total net discomfort.

The important implication: if p'(y') is greater than p(y), she causes a net increase in discomfort if she does make a policy of telling. This could hold true if (1) y' is significantly greater than y or if (2) p' is greater than p.

(1) A potential partner being more disturbed at information before the act than after? Perhaps not. However, being presented with the information that they were about to get hot an heavy with somone who was (to whatever extent) more than meets the eye could very well cause considerable discomfort anyway; in fact, that seems to be an axiom of all the disclosure arguments. I'll assume then that y' is, at least, not considerably less than y.

(2) What are the chances that a potential partner will feel the discomfort y' of being informed up front of the strangeness of their fuckbuddy? And how does this compare to the chances that said partner will, after the fact, deduce or think to ask about the sexual oddities in question and hence feel discomfort y?

So p and p' need to be taken not simply as the chance that a partner will feel discomfort at being given knowledge either after or before sex; they need to represent the multiplication of two factors, d and c:

c (and c') is the probability that they will discover the possibly-discomfiting information;

d (and c') is the probability that the possibly-discomfiting information will, in fact, cause discomfort y (or y').

So when we say p(y) and p'(y') we are really saying cd(y) and c'd'(y').

c', the chance that a partner will discover the information before the act (under a policy of disclosure), will be 1.0 -- they will, of course, always know.

c, the chance that they will discover after the fact, is presumably somewhat less than 1.0.

d' and d, the chance that they will be actually disturbed by this information after and before sex (respectively) are very much on the table. Let's assume, for the fun of it, that d' is somewhat greater than d -- the shock of having learned of a sexual oddity after having engaged in sex being somehow more discomforting than the shock of being presented with a sudden sexual twist in the time leading up to sexual activity; that the fact of having had sex with a twist causes more discomfort than the dilemma of having to, under the eye and judgement of the unusual sexual partner, decide whether or not to reject them sexually based on new information despite having been game in all other respects.

Assuming d is greater than d', the quesiton becomes: is cd greater than c'd'? And is cd(y) greater than c'd'(y')? If not, then, again, pollystark is making the appropriate move through a policy of nondisclosure.

Anybody care to do a personal plug-and-chug?
posted by cortex at 9:34 AM on January 7, 2006

(And there is another question not considered in either of the above models: is it fair to assume that four episodes of discomfort y1 = 1 are equivilant to one episode of discomfort y2 = 4? Is there some threshold (or series of thresholds) at which forgettable discomfort becomes damaging trauma, for example? If that latter is the case, then the question of whether y and y' lie on opposite sides of such a threshold complicates the equality of c'd'(y') != cd(y). This could be accounted for by a scaling factor k, such that k represents the severity of the damaged caused by the trauma-level of any given y, something like so:

k'c'd'(y') - kcd(y)

Also, my terms here and above have been morphed somewhat from those delmoi used originally. Forgive me; it is the morning, and I am still blinking. If they are munged beyond comprehension (rather than merely illformed but comprehensible), I can endeavor to restate.)
posted by cortex at 9:42 AM on January 7, 2006

The quantitative analysis is purely utilitarian and ignores any ethical issues, of course. But perhaps I'm the only one who sees this as both.
posted by Justinian at 10:44 AM on January 7, 2006

Well, if one's ethics are utilitarian, the quantitative analysis is an ethical analysis.

Furthermore, the quantitative anaylsis is sort of ridiculous fromt the start considering all the unknowable variables required to actually find an equality, which fact is unlikely to have escaped those doing the quantifying.

But, yes, you are probably the only person looking at this in a complex and nuanced way. Congratulations!
posted by cortex at 10:50 AM on January 7, 2006

All right. I'm #1! I'm #! Go me!
posted by Justinian at 11:10 AM on January 7, 2006

Well, if one's ethics are utilitarian, the quantitative analysis is an ethical analysis.

Right, but there's something to be said for fairness and granting informed consent. as far as p'(y') is concerned, I do think it's a lot less and pollystark would need to inform p(y)/p'(y') men in order to even things out.

Perhaps the best course of action would be to get to know these guys, and somehow find out through conversation how they would feel about the hypothetical issue, rather informing them straight away. She could avoid sex with people who she doesn’t want to inform, and indicate some hesitance at the idea of sleeping with some hypothetical person like her.

All right. I'm #1! I'm #! Go me!

Whatever, I'm #~
posted by delmoi at 2:14 PM on January 7, 2006

Well, if one's ethics are utilitarian, the quantitative analysis is an ethical analysis.

of course, if the potential fuckbuddy's ethics are utilitarian rather than essentialist, there is no concern over anyone's possible "discomfort". The only way the discomfort can arise is if the potential mate thinks gay sex is inherently "wrong". If he just is personally not into gay sex, that just means he will not engage in gay sex. It does not mean that he could engage in gay sex, enjoy it, and then after the fact discover that it was "gay sex" and therefore was not enjoyed. The only possibility is that he could discover that he did something he would morally choose not to do (not based on a pleasure principle). If it is only a question of choosing to do something that is enjoyable or not enjoyable, then the direct experience will define whether or not the action is endorsed. If there are essentialism moral concerns, then pollystark has to tell the person. But what it comes down to is, y'=homophobia. So if it's up to pollystark to account for the possible discomfort of homophobes, then it's up to her to disclose the information.
posted by mdn at 3:44 PM on January 7, 2006

What? That doesn't follow at all. It EXACTLY means that he could accidently engage in gay sex, enjoy it, and discover after the fact that it was gay sex and get all sorts of creeped out.

I have absolutely no moral problem with gay sex whatsoever. In fact, I encourage all gay people to screw like bunnies if they are into it (with condoms, of course). But I sure as shit would be greatly discomforted if I found out that the person I received a blowjob from was actually a dude in drag. I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

That's not homophobia, that's being heterosexual.
posted by Justinian at 5:49 PM on January 7, 2006

Justinian, it would only be gay sex if you had sex with a man. There is a huge difference between an AIS woman and a man in drag--gonadal, morphologic, hormonal, and phenotypic sex, as well as gender assignment and identity. On some level, conscious or unconscious it sounds like you basically think of pollysnark as a man (at least to my ears.)

But, as murky and complex as I see the boundary, you have the right to draw a sharp line wherever you like--even if you insist that your partners be perfectly female in every aspect--a rather daunting proposition I think, especially where social behavior and personality are concerned.

But you can't expect everyone one else to know or share your views and predelictions. If you explained these to someone like polly, then, yes I agree that she should tell you; otherwise, I think it's up to her. Most people have never heard of AIS, many wouldn't care. But just try to put yourself in her shoes, and to have to explain this very personal and sensitive issue to every possible sexual partner. I know it would make me feel like I was less than a full human being.

I'm not sure I accept your distinction between heterosexual and homophobic. To me, a (simply) heterosexual person wouldn't seek out a same sex partner such as you described, but were it to happen,
they might consider it a mistake, but not a big deal.

Homophobia isn't just about beating up fags or denying them the right to marry, just as racism isn't just about owning slaves or denying them the right to vote, but about those irrational fears which we all share to some degree on another.

In fact, with all kindness, I think a person's feelings with regard to your proprosition would make an excellent test for the degree of homophobia they harbor, just as the equivalent would make an excellent test for racism.

I'm not free from such unjustified phobias. But I do try to recognize them. And what really matters is how we treat others, not the existence of the irrational, internal demons we all wrestle with.
posted by cytherea at 7:22 PM on January 7, 2006

Cytherea: My last post was not specifically in reference to pollystark, so the "gay sex" wasn't meant to apply to her. Hope that clears things up.

As to the rest of your post, you are female I assume?

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of heterosexual men would disagree with you, depending on what you mean by "not a big deal." It wouldn't be a life-shattering experience, but it wouldn't be equivalent to accidently buying Pepsi instead of Coke, either. I'd say discovering the person you just got a blowjob from was a guy would, for the vast majority of heterosexual men, rank rather lower on the "big deal" ladder than discovered the girl you just got an anonymous blowjob from was your sister, but higher than discovering it was your cousin.

If your cousin was hot, at least.
posted by Justinian at 8:06 PM on January 7, 2006

On further review, even if your cousin was not hot. Hey, blowjobs are blowjobs.
posted by Justinian at 8:07 PM on January 7, 2006

My last post was not specifically in reference to pollystark, so the "gay sex" wasn't meant to apply to her. Hope that clears things up.

I did understand that, Justinian. But I didn't see anyother way to square your feelings that she should disclose her AIS--if she isn't male to some very slight degree, then her partner would be uncomfortable with an arbitrary genetic condition, rather than feeling a bit weirded-out and deceived.

As to the rest of your post, you are female I assume?

Ha! I'm not going to say, because I don't want that to influence other's perceptions of my words. You could try The Gender Genie from this thread, but it seems to have some trouble with blog posts.

But if someone were unclear about my sex before a liaison, you can be sure that I'd tell them before I smacked them and walked away.

I'll take it at your word that most men would feel as you describe, but I would still think of that as (low level) homophobia. But that doesn't surprise me, when I think about how most little boys are raised to be terrified of being perceived as feminine or gay in any way.
posted by cytherea at 8:43 PM on January 7, 2006

if she isn't male to some very slight degree, then her partner would be uncomfortable with an arbitrary genetic condition, rather than feeling a bit weirded-out and deceived.

She isn't male to some degree, she's "intersex" to some degree. There's no arguing with that; it's definitional for AIS.

I can't really agree that feeling weirded out if you'd discovered you got a blowjob from a guy (for a heterosexual male) is homophobia to any degree. Homophobia is ethically negative. Getting weirded out is not.
posted by Justinian at 9:04 PM on January 7, 2006

I suck at the internet.
posted by Justinian at 9:06 PM on January 7, 2006

Oi.
posted by raedyn at 7:39 AM on January 13, 2006

just noticed this thread again b/c it went to the top of 'recent comments'... sorry I didn't respond earlier

I can't really agree that feeling weirded out if you'd discovered you got a blowjob from a guy (for a heterosexual male) is homophobia to any degree. Homophobia is ethically negative. Getting weirded out is not.

Actually, that's exactly what homophobia is - that's why it's called homophobia rather than something which would imply just straightforward discrimination like an 'ism'. The ick factor is what makes discrimination against gays happen. Racism and sexism are assumptions about people's capacities - they are generally the belief on some level that women or blacks/minorities are less intelligent, less competent or otherwise less qualified than whites or men. Anti-semitism is usually the belief on some level that jewish people are less honest, less attractive/athletic, and more greedy. As someone said above, your reaction to this feeling is not what defines the ism - that's the root of those claims that 'we're all racists', etc - that we are brought up in a culture that expects and supports certain stereotypes, and even people fighting it often have a gut reaction that supports it.

Homophobia is a little different - there aren't general stereotypes that gay people are less intelligent or more greedy. While effeminate men are looked down on, this is a discrimination against any effeminate man regardless of his orientation, and could be considered a child of sexism as much as homophobia. But regardless, the issue with homosexuality is that you might have to see it, or god forbid, it might even somehow deceitfully happen to you. It's the act itself, not the presumed characteristics of a certain group.

But as I said above, if you're not attracted to men, then don't sleep with people you're not attracted to, and you won't sleep with men. If you sleep with someone you're attracted to, and he later turns out to be male, then you are occasionally attracted to men. Big fuckin' deal.

Anyway, this is really a different issue than sleeping with someone who's AIS, though I'd say the same rule ultimately applies. Have sex with people you enjoy having sex with and don't have sex with people you don't enjoy having sex with. On a moral level, your experience can be colored by new information - if you are physically attracted to someone but later discover he was a murderer, you would probably regret the intimacy. but if you later discover something physical, that doesn't alter the physical attraction. Instead, it ought to alter your understanding of what you're categorically not attracted to.
posted by mdn at 10:21 AM on January 13, 2006

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