CHICAGO—Eradicating any sense of respectability and gentlemanliness he thought he possessed during the long winter months, local man Brendan Watt was reminded Thursday by the return of more revealing spring attire that he is nothing more than a vulgar, hormonal ogre who has to actively keep his thoughts and gaze in check whenever he goes out in public, the disheartened 33-year-old confirmed to reporters. “God,” Watt reportedly said to himself while walking to work amid a variety of women wearing skirts and light strapless garments, as he arrived at the annual realization that he is, despite his best hopes, a chemically driven beast who must mentally tell himself he doesn’t need to take another glance at women who pass by in tank tops and yoga pants. “And there’s still five more months of this, for Christ’s sake.” At press time, Watt had just caught himself taking a second look at a girl who—Jesus—was a good 15 years younger than him, and was sadly accepting that this is just who he is.

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  • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    19 days ago

    Eh. As somebody who’s able to compare hornyness pre and post HRT, yes, testosterone has some pretty strong effects down there, but i really struggle with the biologist interpretation that the absolute awfulness of guys suffering from awooga syndrome is a hormonal problem. When you discard any and all belonging to a masculine gender role at a different time than going on HRT, when you date a pre-HRT, but socially and psychologically completely transitioned trans woman for a while, this becomes very obvious. Biodeterminism is a deeply flawed idea that is missing the central point and conflates a hormonal “it’s so much easier to get a boner on this stuff” with a learned “i need to objectify and partition women to find them sexually desirable”. The violence found in our society’s standard male sexual behavior isn’t organic in nature, it is performative, it is behavioral, it is trained and enforced and policed. This is good news, actually, because it means it is not inherent to being a man, or to being on T, it is inherent to a certain way of doing masculinity and of seeing women that we can denormalize and phase out if we [REDACTED]which would be good training to later perform DIY orchi[IN MINECRAFT]ew Tate in a pit full of hungry baboons.

    • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      19 days ago

      This doesn’t sound like awooga syndrome though, nor does it seem to be about men being biologically destined to be creeps. It’s just one person beating themselves up for having involuntary sexual desire, which in this case I believe the hormonal bit is just referring to the horny chemicals in our brain (which are often conflated with/associated with hormones). Is realizing you’re looking at someone again who you thought was attractive but stopping yourself when you realize it awooga syndrome?

      I don’t know anything, I’m autistic. You’re going to have to spell out exactly what is and isn’t acceptable or moral (please do I am so confused about everything all the time)

      • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        19 days ago

        I’m genuinely sorry but i’m NOT gonna sift through a fuckton of accumulated trauma that me and literally 99% of the women, fems and pre-transition AFAB trans people i know have suffered due to men being horny as fuck and lay it out to you in clear terms. I’m not saying this to put you down or berate you, i’m just explaining why i can’t do that thing you’re asking for. It’s just too much both emotionally and effort wise. The constant objectification that anyone who’s read as female goes through doesn’t fit in one neatly condensed post and spelling out exactly what is and isn’t acceptable in this regard in any and all situations is plainly impossible. Let’s just say that going out there as a girl is scary as hell way too often. To put this in perspective, i get at least one “that guy scared the shit out of me” story every day (i just read another one before coming to hexbear). And men tend to be completely oblivious to this because women* are used to them not taking our experiences seriously anyways, so we share this stuff mostly among ourselves. But it’s omnipresent.

        • Black_Mald_Futures [any]@hexbear.net
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          18 days ago

          i’m not saying testosterone is the causative agent for all cis male malfeasance but I am saying it is The Horny Hormone and what makes dudes look at idk a fucking tree and be like “you know what… 😳” yes it’s like patriarchal shit culture that translates that into “i can do whatever I want with women’s bodies” or whatever and influences what people ultimately do with that feeling, but that feeling (the big horny) itself is absolutely biologically driven

          • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            18 days ago

            well, it’s not the only horny hormone, as evidenced by the fact that those with primarily estrogen in their bodies and not testosterone still end up horny a lot. “Women no want sex, men want sex too much” is common oppositional sexist rhetoric.

    • dayna
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      19 days ago

      I am autistic so my mental experience is going to be different from your average person so that’s important to take into account. Not necessarily disagreeing with you I just wanna point out that for a new individual like me I gained Debilitating level of sexual attraction at age 8 that has never lessened. I don’t mean this as a joke, but I genuinely feel like viscerally sick because of the overwhelming amount of adrenaline that pumps through my body when I see people who are hot. I can taste the adrenaline on my blood in my mouth.

      I was really hoping that going on HRT would lessen or eliminate this feeling, but unfortunately it didn’t. I still feel exactly the same level of intensity. So I guess I want to say two things first I think you’re totally correct that transitioning doesn’t actually change your sexuality that much except that I’m a little more attracted to men than I was before, And I’m more sappy in general. Secondly, I do wanna point out that there are some people who, even after a lifetime of attempting to lessen their sexuality are unable to do so. I’ve been looking into chemical castration to potentially lessen it, but I would have to get it illegally because doctors won’t prescribe it.

      • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        19 days ago

        I don’t think lessening your sexuality is the same thing as not looking at women in creepy ways, you can just be horny and not make others uncomfortable by not including them in it

        • dayna
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          19 days ago

          I agree. What I mean to point out, is that I am not physically capable of not reacting. I don’t want to react, I don’t want to be consumed, but if a hot person enters my field of view, I will often have an involuntary and noticeable reaction. Typically when this happens I will leave wherever I am and go home.

          This happened in a bar for example, and after seeing this person, and obviously stopping what I was saying mid sentence, and being visibly very uncomfortable, I turned to my girlfriend and told her that I had to leave. I felt sick and nauseous for a few hours afterward.

          I relate to the discrepancy between my desire to not be strongly affected by the people around me, and also not show any reaction, and my physical or mental incapability of doing so. The guy in the story is one who feels grossed out by their own body, and wishes they weren’t affected the way that they are. I am similar, not only do I feel guilty for potentially making people uncomfortable, but I feel physically sick because they can be so intense. That doesn’t mean I or the man in the story are carelessly checking people out constantly.

          Again though, I’m so disabled by autism that I will likely never be capable of living independently, so your and my experiences of the world could be vastly different. You probably understand your average man better than I ever could.

          do wonder if a person like me will ever truly have a place in larger society. Autistics who cannot predict or control violent physical meltdowns are obviously not monsters, and it’s obviously not their moral liability for being disabled, but we can also recognize, as they usually do, that it is dangerous to be around them. (From taking to other autistics with those struggles, they all said that was how they felt).

          I can recognize that possibly a person like me shouldn’t participate in social events, because me being around people shouldn’t have to come at the cost of making other people suffer. I’ve honestly mostly accepted that I am kind of a blight. I just try to stay out of society as much as I can and still survive.

          Edit: seeing hot people in person can instantly trigger an autistic shutdown/meltdown in me and ever though I’m not trying to check people out, it is impossible to hide when I happen to notice hot people. Doesn’t happen every time, but it is deeply humiliating every time it happens.

          • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            18 days ago

            I don’t think having a strong reaction is the same thing as staring. Idk if that helps but I don’t think most people would be uncomfortable with someone having a “w-whoa!” reaction, especially when you consider most have an awooga reaction

            Edit: Being visibly struck with awe is different from leering at someone’s boobs or something. Ones basically just surprise while another is a directed and objectifying gaze

            • dayna
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              18 days ago

              Another thing I was thinking about. I have you cornered and now I’m gonna autistic rant at you. So I used to think that being a chaser simply meant finding a trans person attractive. I was really worried that I was being a chaser by being attracted to my girlfriend. She also had the same thought of herself as a chaser for being attracted to me.

              However, I just got this message five minutes ago and now I think I understand what the word means.

              Men can be so confusingly gross that I fail to even perceive their existence until it smacks me in the face.

              • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                18 days ago

                I think a lot of these things might be like riding a bike, where trying to explain every step is basically impossible but if you experience it once you know exactly what’s happening and how it works

            • dayna
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              18 days ago

              Well you probably have a point. Thanks for listening to me. I wonder if this will be insightful for non-autistic or not. I think men specifically are so genuinely shitty that the things that women complain about them doing don’t even really register for me as actual choices, and I often misunderstand because of that. (I am a woman too, but I feel like I’m outside of humanity, so that’s why I talk like that)

  • Acute_Engles [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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    19 days ago

    They have a rule, in writing, at the university campuses around here. 2.5 seconds is the limit for looking at people before it becomes harassment (it was explained to us as looking at girls but I don’t know if that’s the language in the rule)

    I’m assuming the rule applies to contractors mainly but I was pretty disappointed that it had to be written down in the first place.

    My hormones tell me to look at the butt, however my brain is capable of thinking about how the person in possession of the butt may not appreciate being gawked at.

    Men are the worst lol

  • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    19 days ago

    EDIT: Redacted comment because it gives the impression that any sort of staring is acceptable or impossible to prevent. This is not true of course, someone can just not stare at others in a creepy way. I think men in general, and possibly even women who are looking in a sexual way, should simply not at all, and if you find yourself doing it on accident a lot you should probably avoid looking at others you’re attracted to in general, at least until you can change it and just be normal and not look at them any more than any other person.

  • spacecadet [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    19 days ago

    Honestly have a hard time correctly identifying the shame that I shouldn’t feel and the shame that I should feel regarding this stuff.