Solid gold East Acton

[hirez]

In one of the several threads to this fine posting, the numismatic emmelinemay writes:


I'm starting to realise that men really can't comprehend what it's like, unless they've been a woman an had it happen to them. Your experiences are real, yes, and you felt horrible, and objectified, and it was unpleasant.



No, we can't. Yer average trannie may or may not strongly dislike its maleness but it has still benefited from male privilege and, crucially, the expectation of same. Boy howdy, but that can kick you in the nads. However, I get ahead of myself...

So when I used to (cross-) dress up at Whitby, I was discomfited (actually, horrified and not a little fucked off) to discover that my fake baps were now public property, free to be fondled and prodded at. I put that down to beer, novelty and just being especially lucky. However, that experience was only one of the several reasons I gave up dressing up for the event.

The other week, there was a comment elsewhere on LJ (Locked post, so I can't usefully point at it) where it was reported that a MtF TS had been complaining about the same sort of behaviour.

The thought process in my head went (and please try not to laugh at the stupidity inherent in this.)

"That's dreadful! Since when are breasts public property?

...

Oh.
Fuck. "

As a bloke, you don't realise that you have this expectation of male privilege because it's always there. People react to you in the normal way because it's, well, normal. When that crutch gets kicked away, even if only for a short time and under friendly and controlled circumstances, it's really quite nasty.

Now imagine you've got to deal with that every day, without the aid of confidence-boosting beer, sympathetically dim lighting and bouncers on the door...

Obviously, that experience does not even begin to compare. I opened the door a crack, got a lungful of the shit-smelling air, then slammed it shut and ran away.

Comments

[jozafeen.livejournal.com]

the norks thing is a bit like pregnancy belly - I cringe when I see anyone patting an expectant mum's tum as if she has no right to any personal space!

Oh and it seems like blokes are no longer safe. Elsewhere in tinterwebs I have been reading solutions to someone seeking advice on what to do about a 'crush' and how to find out if the male concerned is interested. A shocking number of female respondents have suggested simply pinning him against a wall while grabbing his gentleman's department as 'it never fails'. I think that's awful!

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Never fails to put the shits up the poor bloke and convince him you're some kind of knife-waving bunny boiler, I should think. Christ.


(Ok, there's a very small amount of mileage in 'well, a real man would cope with that sort of thing' and/or 'What's good for the goose...' But I would imagine that the sort of chap who'd cope well with that would have a standing order for a case of wife-beater and twenty Regal from the corner shop.)

[jozafeen.livejournal.com]

The majority of male responses agree with you - in fact most of them are also shielding their virtual nadgers and being mocked by the women for saying it's out of order. This is what happens when former Spice Girl fans grow up and start applying Girl Power. ;-)

[hirez.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm tending toward 'Suck it up and deal, lads. Maybe it'll be a learning experience.'

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I think it's acceptable (in some contexts), it's just that it also conveys the message, "I want to become the female version of a Nuts reader".
On the whole, that's not an attractive proposition. If I'm already interested, then feel free to grab me -- just don't think that by parachuting in from nowhere and grabbing me, you've suddenly made yourself alluring by that alone.

Grabbing blokes _is_ different to grabbing women. Women are grabbed, fondled and ogled, and they're already hacked off with it. Blokes (apart from John's cyber-baps) are not generally treated so. Grabbing women thus has a context of pre-existing lechery that's just not part of the baggage around bloke-grabbing.

[tails-redux.livejournal.com]

Blokes (apart from John's cyber-baps) are not generally treated so
Kilt wearing gets unwarranted attention. I recall particularly unpleasant mauling I had from some pissed out of his head gay bloke, when I was walking to Digi:tec with Rachel. Thankfully I've got good at avoiding hen parties as well when wearing said garment.

[jozafeen.livejournal.com]

I'm of the opinion that any grabbing should at least have some verbal exchange beforehand but that's not what was being suggested. Definitely, as you say, from the Ladette school of pulling tactics!

[eljaydaly.livejournal.com]

Are you following the Making Light thread on this? It's interesting to me to see some people having a hard time comprehending 'male privilege' because they 'would never take advantage of it'.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. And the Pandagon one from a couple of weeks previously.

The ML stuff is just... mind boggling, sometimes.

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

I am really looking forward to reading this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Whipping-Girl-Transsexual-Scapegoating-Femininity/dp/1580051545/ref=sr_1_1/202-3722263-1568621?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181313252&sr=8-1) when it finally arrives.

One of the things that causes me the most impotent rage is the *casual* way in which it's done. Someone once grabbed and squeezed my breast as he was walking past. Didn't even look me in the eye.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. That looks interesting. Let me know what you think?

[thunderbox.livejournal.com]

As a bloke, you don't realise that you have this expectation of male privilege because it's always there.

Out of interest, were you aiming for offensively patronising or patronisingly offensive with this sentence?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the various "But I don't do that" arguments about the place.

Perhaps we should be considering a spherical bloke of known density moving in a vacuum?

[thunderbox.livejournal.com]

So you're confident in your ability to infer someone's attitude and state of mind from their gender?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Nope, just mine. I'm the halfwit working this stuff out in longhand.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

It's a power trip, whether done by male or female. It says, "I have the right to do this." Obviously, no one has the right. And no one can KNOW if this is the sort of advance one would appreciate until it is done. The grabee's opinion on the matter never comes into play. It's all about the grabber. The woman who suggested grabbing a handful of nad to see if a man is interested could well have just asked. What? Was she worried about being tactless? Rebuffed? No, she grabs him because then she has the upper hand (okay, pun intended.) If he's not interested, she may embarrass the hell out of him, she may even get slugged, but she dominated him, and that's what it's all about. It's what men have been doing to women forEVER.
I was never one to believe that stooping to an idiot's level gave me any power. I believe it just makes me one more idiot to add to the idiot parade.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

numismatic

i had to look this up in the dictionary, thus proving i am special...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I like the feel of the word as you say it.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

I once had a pre-teen (I think he was around 12 or 13) ride by me and grab my breast. This was in Chicago and the scrote was wearing the local gang colours so there was a good chance he could be packing a weapon. I did yell at the bastard and from that point on kept a close eye when boys on bicycles rode on the sidewalk.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

But this is not representative of, well, anything really. No-one fondled you because they thought you were a woman, and I'd be willing to be that 99.9% of those that did would never do so to a woman. They thought that you were a hairy bloke getting dressed up for hilarious stag-do type larks. What have you have written is not dissimilar to someone dressing up as a black-and-white minstrel then trying to tell us what it's like being black, and how the experience gave you some unique insight that we'll never have.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

No.

Obviously, that experience does not even begin to compare.

I report my experiences as a trannie. If I (or anyone else) wanted 'stag-do type larks' I'd sod off to a rugby club, not some g*th event.

[hsb.livejournal.com]

I read hirez's post as being his take on a similar but less-inescapable experience. IMO, you are being oversensitive on behalf of women. That hirez felt the need to stop wearing something that made his body public property, and appreciated that his escape isn't available to actual women, makes him particularly aware of how emmelinemay felt, without actually suggesting that he has experienced being a woman.

For reference, I don't actually experience much of the boobs=public objects thing myself. I'm not sure why, but I seem to be able to be invisible most of the time, except when I've dressed up. And those few who notice, and leer, creep me out.

H

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

I am not being oversensitive on behalf of anyone, really. The Internet at the moment is overrun (only a slight exaggeration) by self-loathing males piously telling other males how little we understand about anything; whether that is the case or not, it is becoming rather tedious, particularly since their own position hinges on how very unqualified their are to preach in the first place.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Hm. No self-loathing here, thankfully.

For real self-loathing you need all that Iron John wank. Jayzus that was tiresome. I do not want some baldy cock telling me I'm failing in my masculine duty if I don't go off into a forest with a bunch of humourless lackwits and perform drumming for 24 hours. And/or 'Liar'-period Rollins. Wanker.