The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by DanaC

These are not compliments - they are an imposition. They get shouted at women of all shapes, sizes and aesthetic types.

But hey - we should all be fucking grateful right? Because that's what all women really want - attention from men. Got it.

I was thinking about this when I read a This American Life transcript just now. Act 2 is a female-to-male transgender person, describing what it's like to suddenly go from no testosterone in your body, to a lot of it:

Griffin: After that shot, and after an average shot, my testosterone levels go up to over 2,000 nanograms per deciliter, so that I have the testosterone of two high-testosterone men in my body at once.

Alex: You have the testosterone of two linebackers.

Griffin: Exactly. Exactly. That's a lot. That's a lot of T. And what's amazing about it is how instantaneous it is, that it happens within a few days really. The world just changes.

Alex: What were some of the changes that you didn't expect?

Griffin: The most overwhelming feeling is the incredible increase in libido and change in the way that I perceived women and the way I thought about sex. Before testosterone, I would be riding the subway, which is the traditional hotbed of lust in the city. And I would see a woman on the subway, and I would think, she's attractive. I'd like to meet her. What's that book she's reading? I could talk to her. This is what I would say.

There would be a narrative. There would be this stream of language. It would be very verbal.

After testosterone, there was no narrative. There was no language whatsoever. It was just, I would see a woman who was attractive or not attractive. She might have an attractive quality, nice ankles or something, and the rest of her would be fairly unappealing to me.

But that was enough to basically just flood my mind with aggressive, pornographic images, just one after another. It was like being in a pornographic movie house in my mind. And I couldn't turn it off. I could not turn it off. Everything I looked at, everything I touched, turned to sex.

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