Early last month i had a fairly good match (percentage wise) with a woman on OK Cupid. We bounced a couple of mails back and forth then i gave her one of my gmail accounts. We had another couple of mails that way then decided to have a video chat.

I’ve been on a lot of blind dates. I’ve probably been on more blind dates than any one person ever should. One of the things that i always tell people when meeting someone they don’t know much about is do not have any expectations. And that’s how i went into the video chat. (Because someone in the future may read this, keep in mind that we’re in the middle of a plague right now).

She was on an iPhone, i was using one of my PCs with a Logitech c920 and my Scarlett 2i2 microphone (mixer and mic = $250). She had trouble hearing me. I expect that’s because with a bass voice, her speakers couldn’t respond appropriately.

As these things go, she was perfectly pleasant if not perfunctory. We had spoken for an hour when she said, “Okay. We’ve been speaking for an hour. It’s time for me to go.” It was a little abrupt but fine. I can’t say there was any degree of chemistry on my part for a couple of reasons but not limited to the fact that i just didn’t find her attractive.

But we still exchanged emails- perhaps i just didn’t have the courage to tell her that i wasn’t really interested in continuing our conversation. Perhaps i was just lonely and wanted someone to write. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

And one day in one of my responses to one of her emails, i detailed to her why i do not like being touched unless it’s by a lover/ girlfriend. Her response was concise and non ambiguous.

One big one of mine is being clear that I must only choose to be in companionship with people who fit me easily and offer reciprocation of specific forms of affection that match my needs well without much difficulty.

I will part from you here with a positive thought for you…

Okay. It didn’t work out. I wasn’t attracted to her, she wasn’t attracted to me. She wasn’t interested in being friends and although i followed up with a note saying otherwise, i honestly wasn’t sure i wanted to be friends with her. That’s just the way it goes. Ego is bruised for a day but then the next day i move on.

Fast forward nearly 4 weeks. I wake up this morning with this single line from her:

I know this is out of the blue… but your voice is invading my thoughts when I masturbate. Try phone sex?

Really?

Is that really what you want to lead with? We never spoke about anything sexual, you tell me you’re not interested in me and yet you want to use The Moisturizer ™ (aka: my voice) so that you can join the six knuckle club? How would you feel if i wrote out of the blue and asked,

“Hey. Remember me? I’ve been really horny lately and was wondering if you’d like to have Skype sex. Maybe you could show me your vulva or something.”

Needless to say, unless she writes again, i will NOT be responding to her. I’ve had my fill of people that want a part of me but do not want me. I’m well aware of how powerful my voice can be. The woman that absolutely broke my heart in 1998- some nights i would keep her rolling in orgasms using just my voice. I’ve had a few other lovers that were responsive to my voice to varying degrees but just like being touched and wanting to touch others, using my voice in a sexual manner is a very, very intimate thing.

She can go buy a Bad Dragon and a Hitachi Magic Wand and turn a subwoofer into a Sybian for all i care.

The next scoop of crazy is a lot more simple. It turns out that i’m a bigot.

It’s true. After a quick introduction and one email exchange, i was asked by a woman from OK Cupid the following:

“They also say that you consider yourself a feminist “to some extent” and that you wouldn’t dat [sic] a transgender person. I’d like to know if those answers have changed as well, and if they haven’t, to exactly what point do you stop considering yourself a feminist, and why wouldn’t you date a transgender person? In your opinion, are transgender woman real women?”

For clarification, the ‘they’ she mentioned was about some questions that i had answered a long time ago. I do not remember why i had put ‘to some extent’ on the question regarding feminism. I explained that was possibly an error. I also explained that no, i am not interested in dating a transgendered woman.

That elicited the following response:

“And transphobia doesn’t line up with my values. Not all transgender women are the same “type”, so trying to say that “transgender women aren’t my type doesn’t fly. Transgender women are not a monolith, and if you’re dismissing all transgender women as “not your type” simply BECAUSE they are transgender, then you’re a transphobe and I don’t want to talk about music and travel (or anything else) with a transphobe. Unless you are homosexual, you can’t say that you “aren’t romantically or sexually drawn to transgender women. Have you met all of them? Transgender women are WOMEN, and represent as diverse an array of “types” as cisgender women do. Saying that you “don’t care” about this is a stance that displays a lot of unchecked privilege. So I’m very glad I asked you to elaborate on your answers. Have a nice day and I wish you the best. I sincerely hope you take a good hard look at your deeply held prejudices. Take care, and goodbye.”

This- this right here embodies why i fucking loathe conservatism. Telling someone what they can think, how they’re supposed to think, who they’re supposed to be attracted to and trying to do it with some sort of pseudo intellectual authoritarianism is an anathema to everything i value. This sort of shit flies in Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia and other conservative regimes but has no place in the US (where i am) nor Canada (where she’s from).

And do NOT try to tell me that being politically correct is anything related to liberalism. This is the same authoritarian rationale that countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc… use to imprison people for blasphemy. It’s used by liberals without any sense of irony to force others to think in their very specific way to discourage people from believing and speaking their mind. It’s a way to punish anyone that doesn’t conform. That is not compatible with an open, liberal democracy; it’s the refuge of conservative authoritarianism.

I have my preferences. Just because i’m not interested in dating Asian women (Japan, Korea, Viet-Nam, Thailand, etc…) doesn’t make me a fucking bigot. I wouldn’t date a woman with excessive tattoos and/or piercings either. It makes me a guy with fucking preferences and no one can tell me that i don’t have the right to my thoughts and desires. Physically i prefer women with big hips, large (natural) breasts, dark hair and if i’m lucky, freckles, glasses and nice eyes. A transgendered woman could fulfill some of those things but isn’t going to fit that entire bill and i will never, NEVER again date someone i am not attracted to. Hips just cannot be grown like a pair of breasts. And then there are the inserty bits. They can be positively sensuous and gorgeous. No amount of surgery is ever going to duplicate that.

Just because i’m not attracted to someone doesn’t make me a sexist, a misogynist or a fucking bigot.

I’m going to expand this for a bit because i’m really, really tired of gender identity politics. If someone wants to identify as a man or woman, great. Do it. I do not care. You’re entitled to every single right and protection that the law affords anyone. But to my liberal brethren that have decided that this is the hill they want to die on; you are stupid and you are useless. This issue alone will ensure that the Nationalists/ Fascists/ Fundamentalists/ Republicans will stay in power. Why? Do you really think that the family that has to sell their house to pay their chemotherapy bills gives a fuck if someone wants to transition to a woman? How has transgender politics helped bring the minimum wage up to $15 or better? How has transgender identity politics helped rebuild unions, rebuild roads and bridges, created affordable housing, modernized tax policies, advanced single payer health care, made affordable education or addressed gun violence? THOSE are the issues that matter to me.

So PA, if you ever read this, know that you are an privileged, pretentious, insecure, whining little shit. At a minimum, you could have given me another perspective and maybe i would have developed a better understanding and empathy for for transgendered problems and challenges. But the way you chose to respond just shows why i hate ivory tower, pseudo intellectual shit stains like you. What a fucking delicate, fantasy world you must live in.