Controversial views

[Regina]

If you're a lesbian, supposedly attracted to women, why do you date "women" who look like ugly fat men?

By the same token you could ask, why do men date women being rather on the strong side. I once dated a girl, who really didn't have the ideal body measurements, but her personality made more than up for it. She was sexy because of her charisma, not because of her looks, although her face actually was pretty.

I feel like when guys do it though, they'll date a tomboy kind of woman, but she's still clearly female from a mile away. There's no ambiguity there. Same thing for gay men, they might date a feminine man, but he's still clearly a man.

I don't mean to make it sound like I'm so hung up on just looks, which is probably how my post sounded tbh. It's more the dating a woman who looks more like a man that confuses me.

[c172]

Agreed with that. I always wondered the physical attarction. Is it the vaginas themselves? Somehow butches have better looking vaginas and all LGBTs "know" this?

When I lived in rural western NC in 1998, two of my three housemates were butch, fat lesbians, and it always puzzled me how there were so many that were in that boat (I went to an SGA meeting at Western Carolina University, 30 mi. away).

But, tbdh, there are so many attractions and fetishes out there. It's confounding. Whatever floats your boat. I'll keep looking for my dainty young lady in a polka dot skirt, saddle shoe and killer lipstick.

[abaris]

Agreed with that. I always wondered the physical attarction.

Do you think there is such a thing as purely physical attraction? I mean, I can look at supermodels, appreciating their body and yet not being attracted at all. I can look at other women, not fitting the ideal and crave for them.

Beauty alone doesn't do anything at all for me. If the personality isn't there, there's no attraction. And I don't even mean having to talk to someone to learn that. Sometimes looking at them is enough. I can't say what it is, but some women simply are attractive to me, and I don't necessarily mean that in a physical way. It may coincide, but it doesn't have to.

[c172]

For me, I'm 40, single, and never intend to marry. I can look at a young woman and enjoy her physical beauty immensely without even paying attention to her personality. 

But certainly, if the personality is negative enough, looks, however awesome, don't matter, at least as much.

[abaris]

But certainly, if the personality is negative enough, looks, however awesome, don't matter, at least as much.

At least for me there's such a thing as bland beauty. The proportions are right, but I can't muster any feelings beyond appreciating the proportions. Which is about in the same attraction region as looking at a stone statue.

[Regina]

Agreed with that. I always wondered the physical attarction. Is it the vaginas themselves? Somehow butches have better looking vaginas and all LGBTs "know" this?

But, tbdh, there are so many attractions and fetishes out there. It's confounding. Whatever floats your boat. I'll keep looking for my dainty young lady in a polka dot skirt, saddle shoe and killer lipstick.

I don't see how it could be. I mean, transwomen who still have penii (generally) aren't sexually attractive to me even if they are really attractive... but at the same time I'm not necessarily turned off by a passable transman who still has a vagina. Maybe I'm just basing it on my attraction, as I'm more attracted to secondary sex characteristics (male body shape, facial and body hair, mens' features etc) than I am to genitals.

But I definitely second "whatever floats your boat". I'm not saying any of this to mean I'm against very butch lesbians dating or being together, I just don't necessarily understand it.

It's actually none of my business, but hey, I guess I'm just a people watcher.

[abaris]

But I definitely second "whatever floats your boat". I'm not saying any of this to mean I'm against very butch lesbians dating or being together, I just don't necessarily understand it.

Truth is, you have to view it on an individual level. People are attracted to different things. Regardless of their sexual orientation. I have a friend or aquaintance, it's not a very close friend. He, being a slender guy, is in a long term relationship with an incredibly fat woman and I kept thinking, I could never date her. But watching them interact told me a different tale. They simply matched and I can't even say why. They just did.

[robvalue]

OK this is a well sourced post about animal testing. I'll keep looking for more. If anyone finds proper rebuttals on the net, I'd be interested.

Basically, humans are too different to animals for the results to be meaningful.

http://www.peta2.com/boards/topic/33-rea...pointless/

[vorlon13]

Brian was quite a ways off of looking like my 'type', and that contributed to the difficulties I had in understanding my feelings for him. He wasn't older than me, he lacked about 50 to 75 pounds of mass and lord knows, he wasn't hairy.

Any time I contemplated my melt down over him and the subsequent bout of depression, I was mystified, WTF is it about Brian that has the power to make me miserable ??

I attributed it to there not being anything 'special' about Brian beyond encountering him in the midst of the AIDS crisis, and his literally being 'one too many' for me to handle, the implication being, whoever I was going to encounter in that time frame was going to trigger a crisis in me because I was at the very limits of what I could stand in regards to all the horror and death around me.

I look back and realize for me, my understanding of myself was in considerable error as I was assuming I was shallow, and only/mostly appearance driven regarding to the physical type of man I would be attracted to emotionally.

It is much easier now for me to not be too consumed with thoughts like "what do they see in each other??" as there can be a profound factor in the attraction equation, if you will, that will not be evident to anyone else. But its as real as anything to anyone who does 'see' it.

I've also noticed old pictures I have of Brian now image a strikingly handsome man, and that is not how I experienced Brian at the time. Weird and telling, had he been attractive to me at the time, my 'type' in other words, and I had reacted similarly, I might never have realized his actual appeal, and just attributed my response to his hunky hairy masculine presence, and not anything beyond that (hypothetical) hot exterior.

Damn, life is easier for shallow people, and damn me for not being authentically shallow . . . .

[Cecelia]

Most of my views on education probably.

-It'll be a great day when Schools get all the money they need, and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to build bombers.
-Education is not just about preparing you for a job, it's about preparing you for life.
-School choice is a bad idea.  Private Schools can deny anybody they want, and can kick students out at their own volition.  It's fine that they're able to do that, but they should not receive public funding.  If someone wants to send their kids to private school, they should pay for it themselves.  We can't take from public schools to give to private ones.  More over school choice opens up to what we see at the college level: Scams like University of Phoenix in for-profit universities.  A degree from for-profit schools are practically worthless.  Big no to Vouchers.
-Yes, your tax money goes to pay for schools even if you don't have kids.  If you want to live in a world where people are idiots, by all means start your own country.
-One of the biggest problems with our education system is that people view Academia and intellectualism as bad things.  We value Athletic Achievement too much, and Academic Achievement too little. 
-It's absolutely depressing whenever I hear some of my smartest students tell me they're not sure they'll be able to go to college because they cannot afford it.  Students in good academic standing should not have to worry about how they're going to pay for college.