This thread has a lot of experts about women. A lot of pontificating and high horsing.
How many "Opinion of x" threads are created on this forum every day? This forum is full of pontificating and high horsing, in fact that's one of it's defining characteristics. I don't actually think that's a bad thing, because let's face it, it's
fun to be an arrogant snob offering your opinions on everything as if they actually matter, and doing that IRL tends to get people to not like you, so it's cool to have somewhere to do that online
Being transgender doesn't make you an expert on sexuality.
No, and I never claimed it did. I do think that it gives me some more understanding of gender and especially the way society treats men and women differently, though, given that I'm one of the few people on the planet to have experienced both firsthand.
But I don't think prostitution is some abuse of women, either. Men want sex... these women choose to provide it. Now of course anybody coerced into the profession is very much abused and traumatized...
It always amazes me how many liberal/leftist men are willing to adopt laissez-faire "they chose it" arguments with regards to prostitutes when they are appalled when free-marketers apply such arguments to underpaid and exploited Walmart workers, for example.
Although, to be fair, I'm not sure whether you were applying this to the concept of prostitution
in theory or how it's actually practiced in most cases in the world today. If it's the former I agree with you and I apologize for picking on you, it was more the way some people (including a certain poster here) use such arguments to defend the latter (or, in the case of that particular poster, certain lifestyle choices they have made).
...but let's treat women as women. They can be catty, passive aggressive, and manipulative. Most of my female friends use sex as a weapon... denying their boyfriends sex because they didn't do something they wanted. I find that behavior to be immature and ridiculous.
1) All of the things you mentioned apply to men as well, or at least have some very close equivalent.
2) I don't see the relevance of this to what we're discussing.
But I won't pretend to really understand them or their sexuality because I'm not attracted to them... even emotionally, I feel more comfortable with guys. So my womyns knowledge is cursory at best.
Fair enough, although I think you can understand a lot with just the human capacity for empathy, which is quite powerful for most non-sociopaths.
And let's face it.. .our society is leaving boys behind in education and opportunities as women shoot past par and pull ahead of men.
This is not due to some inherent superiority in women... but a system that has become geared towards girls. Girls are more patient and can sit and listen for long periods of times while boys get antsy... so the girls learn better because the teaching style benefits their natural behavior.
The idea is not equality... but equity. Each gender puts their contribution in. They won't all be equal. Men are better at some things than women, and vice versa. But that when it comes to how we treat eachother, and how our institutions treat each gender.. then equality must enter the picture.
This is an issue I'm happy to debate about, but we're already pretty far from the original topic of this thread and this thread is already long enough, so I don't feel like adding yet another digression here.
Anyway, I actually like this thread, it's been a very interesting debate and I'm honestly amazed (in a good way) that it hasn't gone worse. For a thread that's a)
on the internet, b) about an extremely sensitive and emotional issue, and c) on a forum that has a few problems with sexism already, to put it mildly, I'd say this thread has been way above average.