yagathai | (no subject)

Recent comments by Seth McFarlane, creator and writer of Family Guy, have caused controversy in circles where such controversy is wont to occur. You can read about it in more detail here, but the short of it is that one of his straight male characters threw up after he learned that he'd had sex with a post-op male-to-female transsexual. McFarlane was criticized for saying that he didn't think that this was an out-of-the-ordinary reaction for your average straight dude.

I got into a bit of an ugly scrum over at

redstapler's LJ, where what I thought was a productive discussion with

redstapler quickly got derailed by your usual-type flailers and shriekers accusing me of being the devil, so I was hoping maybe we could have a more civil discussion of the topic here.

It remains to be seen if that's possible.

My points, briefly, are that:

It is not unreasonable for a straight male in modern Western culture to be distressed upon learning that someone he thought was a ciswoman, that is to say a woman that was born a woman, with woman bits, who was acculturated as a woman was actually a transwoman, that is to say a woman that was born a man, with man parts, acculturated as a man who later got top and bottom surgery and is now a woman*.

It is, further, wrong for a transperson not to notify their partner that they are in fact trans, and not cis, if they can reasonably assume that the fact that they're trans might affect their partner's decision to consent to sex. In other words, their partner has to be given an opportunity for informed consent. Without such a notification, their partner is incapable of informed consent and that's wrong, because sex without informed consent is a form of rape -- in fact, it's one of the primary definitions of rape.

The arguments against me, as best I can understand them, are:

A transperson should never have to reveal their trans status because they are constantly in danger of being transbashed, that is to say, violently assaulted because of their transsexual status. Concern for their personal safety overrides any other considerations, including their obligation to inform a potential sexual partner.

If you have sex with a transperson and you can't tell that they're trans, then what difference does it make? You never need to know, and they never need to tell you. No harm, no foul.

yagathai is a racist and a transphobe and a homophobe and a terrible human being**.

Discuss.

*Yes, there may be ways to be a transwoman that don't involve getting a whole bunch of surgery, but this was the scenario as presented in the TV show and it's the one I'm going with here.
**For the record, I think you could make a legitimate case for only one of those four things.

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I am not saying that a sexual preference for cis-people is culturally taught.

I'm saying that a revulsion and disgust for the discovery of trans-status *is.* The danger trans-people live with is the result of long-standing, systemic, culturally-ingrained hate.

I'm not saying everyone needs to go fuck everyone regardless of one's preference. I'm saying that we need to change the fact that disgust and revulsion is the response.

Listen, in that cartoon Brian did not vomit because he discovered that Quagmire's dad was a transwoman. He vomited because he had been fucking Quagmire's dad, the transwoman. And then he refused to tell anyone about it because he was ashamed, and showered compulsively but still felt dirty and violated, and couldn't have any sexual feelings without intense shame and depression.

You watch the show. Do you think that the character of Brian, written consistently as a fairly comfortable middle-class liberal intellectual, would have vomited if he'd found out that Quagmire's dad was trans when he met her at the bar? Do you think he'd have showered compulsively if he'd been hanging out with with Quagmire's dad at a party and found out she was born a man? I would likely say, not.

Again, I submit that Brian's reaction was not to the simple fact that Quagmire's dad was trans, but rather because his sexual identity had been seriously violated and as a result he'd been psychologically traumatized.

Having not seen the show, I think that post-coital transphobia usually stems from sexual orientation. "I fucked a girl who used to be a guy, OMG I'M NOT A FAG, BUT NOW I FUCKED A DUDE, *puke.*"

So, Mike, you're right that the reaction was not unheard of or unrealistic. Thinking it's not unrealistic doesn't make you transphobic or homophobic or a terrible person (you're a terrible person because you bust up your evil twin when she's vulnerably post-surgery!). But redstapler is also correct that media portrayal such "realism" contributes towards how people learn such behaviours.

Wait, isn't Brian the dog? Isn't that grosser? And why should a cartoon dog be held up as a reasonable model of a straight human male?

Also I don't buy that barfing is a common reaction to something you don't like having happened, at least as common as movies and TV would have us believe. Shit gets real, I don't spontaneously ralph, and I've never seen anyone do so.

But straight up? Family Guy is offensive all the time on every level and is not funny. Color me not shocked that they were not funny and offensive again.

I'm still thrown by it was the dog? Having sex with someone's dad? What?

The dad was a retired fighter pilot that had late-life sex-reassignment surgery. The A-plot of the episode was Quagmire unable to come to terms with the fact that his hyper-macho dad was a transsexual woman.

Brian is treated inconsistently based on the comedy needs of the episode. Sometimes he's treated like a dog, but in recent seasons they've been treating him like a human most of the time, with the occasional surreal gag that points out the fact that he's a dog. But he drinks martinis, has human girlfriends, drives a car, wrote a crappy pretentious novel that got panned by the New Yorker, etc. Basically anytime they need a straight man for a romance subplot, or a male character that isn't a buffoon like Chris or Peter, they use Brian the dog.

Within the fiction of the show, it's not at all unusual for the dog to be having sex with a human woman.

Edited 2010-08-07 04:10 (UTC)

I think it makes it worse. Even a dog wouldn't sleep with you, etc...

Nah. I see where you're coming from, but again, within the fiction of the show nobody seems to take it amiss that Brian dates human women.

Again, I submit that Brian's reaction was not to the simple fact that Quagmire's dad was trans, but rather because his sexual identity had been seriously violated and as a result he'd been psychologically traumatized.

See, this is what's very, very wrong about this situation: this "sexual identity had been seriously violated" thing. Why has his sexual identity been violated? It could only be violated because he believed that a transwoman is not a "real" woman. He believed that a transwoman is some sort of man in disguise, not a woman, and that the biology (and his own perception of her) is the truth and not how the person chooses to define herself. And that's sick and horrible and I have to refuse to think that this is the norm for white, cis-gendered men, because I would have to believe them even more damaged by the patriarchy than I already do.

Agreed.

If what he found was what he wanted, and he did things he enjoyed, what does it matter where those parts came from? He met a woman, he liked a woman, he screwed a woman, and he presumably had a good time, period dot.

It certainly is transphobia to say, after all that, "omg what if I'm gay because she was really a sneaky trickster man and I had sex with him!"

If what he found was what he wanted, and he did things he enjoyed, what does it matter where those parts came from? He met a woman, he liked a woman, he screwed a woman, and he presumably had a good time, period dot.

That's the crux of this particular argument for me. Being turned off by someone's body parts? Normal variation in desire. Being nauseated by the idea of the source of those body parts challenging your straightness? Homophobia and transphobia, plain and simple.

This does not make those emotions not real, to be clear. Emotions are emotions. But every one of us has the personal responsibility to handle our own emotions appropriately, and examine whether they come from flawed reasoning or bigoted assumptions.

This.

His sexual identity had been violated? I'm sympathetic to emotional distress but that idea is transphobic bollocks. Brian's a hetrosexual, male character who fucked a woman. A trans woman, but inarguably a woman.

So yes, I agree with you -- we should do something about the fact that in our current culture the reaction to trans-status is often revulsion and disgust, but I don't think that the change you describe can be reasonably expected to carry over to someone who finds out that the person they've been fucking is not the person they thought they were fucking.

"I didn't know she was crazy when I fucked her."

Nah. I knew it and liked it. ;)

Your predilection for stickin' it in The Crazy aside, I'm saying "I didn't know she wasn't factory original" just doesn't hold any more weight than "I didn't know she was crazy."

It might if crazy were a dealbreaker, instead of a lagniappe.

Have you *ever* fucked someone who didn't have daddy issues?

... at least twice, I think.

Lies!