“I mean, I’ve literally taught trans-inclusive sex ed, and the two most...”
How about....nobody should ever be coerced into sexual activity with someone whose genitals they are repulsed by? Some people aren’t comfortable contributing to or facilitating the arousal of a penis, not matter how it’s done
I ran trans-inclusive sex ed workshops (which is what the post you replied to is about, regarding what I’ve experienced running them). People who wanted to learn about trans-inclusive sex ed came to those workshops. Some of that material focused on expanding the scope of what people usually considered sexual activity, how to communicate boundaries and navigate dysphoria, and touched on areas of the body that could be focused on outside of penises or vulvas/vaginas to achieve sexual pleasure.
Like, yeah, some people’s genital repulsion will be too severe, whether broadly or conditionally, to engage in sexual intimacy with someone who has a certain physical makeup. That was something I certainly covered in my material (see above where I mentioned communicating boundaries).
However, genital repulsion is not a one size fits all experience. It varies from person to person in a variety of ways and degrees. I’d wager most binary-aligned trans people have a degree of genital repulsion due to dysphoria. Helping give people the tools to navigate their bodies to discover what they are and are not comfortable with is important, helping people understand the possibilities of sexual intimacy available to them is important in a society that hyper-focuses on PiV as the only ‘real’ and ‘worthwhile’ method of sexual pleasure.
For every person I’ve met whose genital repulsion has prevented them from any sexual interactions involving people such such genitals (including themselves), I’ve met 4 or 5 whose repulsions had specific and often avoidable triggers. Helping them know how to navigate sexual encounters with their partners is important if they are uncertain. Education is important.
I’m not going to assume that just because some people who are genitally repulsed cannot be sexual at all with people whose bodies share the traits they have repulsion-based triggers about, that ALL people with genital repulsions are exactly like them. That’s not the case, it’s never been the case, and I’m not so irresponsible of a sex educator to take that sort of stance, or to claim a set of people are sexually incompatible by default over one or more of them being genitally repulsed.
I want you to read over your response to my post and really ask yourself why that was what you needed to communicate.
Above all else, in the context of the post, why did you immediately jump to the notion that helping people have a better understanding of trans-inclusive sex ed meant that people were being coerced into sexual encounters with penises? I want you to think really hard about what you just implied, and how it lines up perfectly with social stigmas of trans women being sexual predators. I want you to think really hard about why your (hopefully) knee-jerk response to this post was to position a trans woman sex educator as a facilitator of rape culture, if not rape itself.
I don’t particularly care if you respond to this, but for the sake of any trans women in your life, if there are any, I hope you reflect on your response here and what it might say about how you perceive them, and how safe you are for them to be around.
