Who gets to name the parts
Purple Sage has a post on a new “Safer Sex” guide for trans people. Read it all; I want to share a couple of her points here.
The guide begins by defining some terms:
“We, as trans people, use a variety of words to describe our gender and our body parts, and these words can be very unique and personal. There’s no one right way to refer to our bodies, but to keep things consistent in this guide, we’ve decided to use the following words in the following ways.
…
PARTS: We use this word when we’re talking about genitals or sexual anatomy of any kind.
DICK: We use this word to describe external genitals. Dicks come in all shapes and sizes and can belong to people of all genders.
FRONT HOLE: We use this word to talk about internal genitals, sometimes referred to as a vagina. A front hole may self-lubricate, depending on age and hormones.
STRAPLESS: We use this word to describe the genitals of trans women who have not had genital reconstruction (or “bottom surgery”), sometimes referred to as a penis.
VAGINA: We use this word to talk about the genitals of trans women who have had bottom surgery.
See what they did there? Women have “front holes” but trans women have vaginas.
Is that, finally, obvious enough misogyny that people will get it?
Then there’s some very creepy shit about “transactional sex” which is what they call prostitution.
This guide talks about consent, which is good, but look how they throw in a sentence about “transactional sex.”
“Consent is the enthusiastic, mutual and voluntary agreement to do whatever activity you’re discussing. Giving consent is an ongoing process: You always have the right to say “yes” or “no” to any sexual activity regardless of whether you’ve done it before, whether you know your partner really likes it or whether you’re in the middle of doing it. We also recognize that transactional sex complicates consent. If at any point you change your mind about doing something, you should say so and your partner needs to stop.”
And johns always stop when the sex worker changes her mind, as is well known. There is no violence in the “transactional sex” industry, however much transactional sex complicates consent. And I’m Marie of Rumania.
In their section on communication, they talk about “transactional sex” again:
“We recognize that communication can be complicated with transactional sex partners. In some cases, the recognition of the sex transaction can actually help frame sexual negotiation, but power and control dynamics can also make this more challenging. Hopefully, ongoing communication can help us have sexual experiences where we all feel safe and respected.”
Hopefully! Yeah! Let’s hope so! Let’s just keep hoping so forever, while the johns beat up the sex workers and nobody gives a damn. Hopefully all that will stop one of these days.
And then there’s the BDSM part, but I’ll let Purple Sage tell you about the knives and blades and what she thinks the correct advice is. (Spoiler: don’t use them.)
They say they’re total women deep in their hearts, but it’s such a guy thing to do:
“Hey, I’ve been the default human all my life. Now that I’m a woman, I’m the default woman.”
I agree that anyone can use whatever words they like to describe themselves or their anatomy. But why are they choosing to use “strapless” for “penis”? What am I missing?
That person has a strapless.
Sure, and—wait. What?
Ben, I think they are using it in contrast to “strap-on”,which are wearable dildos women can use to penetrate others.
“If at any point you change your mind about doing something, you should say so and your partner needs to stop.”
Isn’t the point that prostitutes aren’t allowed to say no? That you have to pretend you like it (or show how much you don’t like it if that’s what the john wants)? Although you are allowed to have a list of sex acts you won’t agree to, once you’ve agreed you’re kind of “contractually obliged”, right?
That’s more than just the “complication” of consent, that’s erosion of consent.
Samantha, that’s about the only meaning I could think of as well. If we’re right about that it seems interesting that both unmodified male and female anatomy is defined using atypical language, leaving typical language for trans* people. I can’t imagine that is accidental. Sort of a reverse erasure – how do you like that fuckers – kind of thing.
So a (natural) penis is like a kind of modified artificial penis?
I guess that “makes sense.”
“We also recognize that transactional sex complicates consent.”
Except that it doesn’t. The preceding sentence stands on its own. It only complicates consent for someone who doesn’t really believe in consent.
Samantha, that’s what Purple Sage says as well. The implication is that a transwoman’s penis is just like a strap on dildo that doesn’t have straps. The implication is that it’s just an artificial thing, not a body part.
Gary (and others):
Exactly. Prostitution is a situation in which consent is not possible. I started to list some of the reasons for this but it ended up looking like the Spanish Inquisition sketch from Monty Python.
@Samantha:
Yes, that seems to be what they’re getting at and yes it’s fucked up. All of this nomenclature seems to derive from hatred of one’s genitals. I can understand why someone might hate their genitals if they or their associations are causing them pain and stress, but – and this is Purple Sage’s main point – helping people to disassociate themselves from the body parts they see as problematic isn’t helpful. It’s the opposite of helpful.
And needless to say, vaginas are particularly despised unless they are the proper trans vaginas. There’s more in Purple Sage’s piece about how ridiculous and downright offensive the ‘front hole’ term is. Vaginas are a lot more than ‘holes’. They are a lot more than places to put penises. Babies tend to come out of them occasionally, for one thing.
Again, I understand why people who don’t want a vagina or penis might want to disassociate themselves from those organs by calling them stupid shit. But I don’t understand why the people who didn’t originally have a vagina are the only ones who get to say they have one, post-op.
I don’t agree with everything Purple Sage says in this post, but the main point, which is that the last thing medical and psychological professionals should be doing is turning symptoms into ‘identity’, is spot on. Like Purple Sage says: we don’t treat low self-esteem as an identity, we treat it as a bunch of symptoms which can be addressed in a variety of ways. We don’t make up terminology to help people with low self esteem lower it still further.
@me:
They are a lot more than places to put penises
Sorry, straplesses.
From the safer sex guide:
That definitely takes the word “vagina” away from people born female and gives it to people born male (or to people born intersex, but the guide mentions intersex only on the last page in the caption for the photo of the trans pride flag).
Purple Sage points out this terminology is medically bullshit — especially from Whitman-Walker as a healthcare organization — and I don’t see how it can help anybody. I could sympathize if a trans person feels bad about something (maybe resenting natural vaginas, or resenting people who feel better about themselves), but I can’t understand HRC and Whitman-Walker promoting this approach.
Because it’s bothering me:
It’s not the “front hole.” It’s the middle hole.
Female genitals (notice the plural) include several organs. They are not reducible to just the vagina.
Also–“Parts”? Really?
Also too–
–But not vaginas! Oh, no.
(And clits aren’t even mentioned.)
“…sometimes referred to as a vagina.” Sometimes. As if the matter is already settled, and only old relics of the bygone era known as the nineties refer to them in such antiquated terms, akin to the old relics of the fifties that still use e.g. mulatto or some shit.
#3
Yes, heaven forbid that we might use the word penis to describe a penis. Apparently once someone has determined that they are going to transition to womanhood, but before they have the surgery to remove it, the presence of a penis becomes problematic, because women can’t have a penis despite the entire trans concept resting on the idea that a person can be A while having the anatomy of B. Yet pointing out that an A has the anatomy of a B is the direst of insutls. And so, a woman with a penis must call it a strapless dildo, as if to imply they have a natural female body but a penis-facsimile was accidentally glued on.
“Some women have a penis, they are still a woman! But don’t call it a penis, because only men have those!” The position is patently incoherent.
#11
On that general theme, renaming the distressing body as a means of reducing the stress strikes me as being similar to renaming my ‘pot belly’ to a ‘sixpack.’ Euphemising the problem does not remove it, and strikes me as being counterproductive in dealing with it. Imagine an OB/GYN using ‘ vajay-jay’ when talking to an adult; leave the infantalising words to discussions with kids.
If we can call the breasts of non trans women that have been surgically created “fake”, can we call the surgically created breasts (and vaginas) of trans women “fake” too?
Incidentally there are actually real strapless dildos as well… so how does that work?
Badly?
There’s an old riddle: “How many legs does a dog have, if you call the tail a leg?”
Answer: “4. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.”
For Lady Mondegreen #12,
When I heard Tina Fey say that on the audiobook, I confess I paused the CD to consider the topology maybe longer than I should have. In my defense,
I was probably over-counting the hole in the cervix to the Texas Longhorns.
Anyway, your point stands. Everybody uses their urethra every day. Not counting it seems incorrect.
@Dave Ricks, I see more of a ram’s skull, but, yeah. :)