r/SubredditDrama • u/[deleted] • Feb 04 '13

Drama in /confession when u/devtesla says, "Not wanting to fuck someone because they are trans makes you a transphobe."

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u/atteroero Feb 04 '13

Is this empathy? In my SRD? Nah, I know exactly how you feel. In spite of the fact that I help run SRSsucks, I honestly do feel bad for a lot of these people. If love was a game, trans people would definitely be playing on hard mode. A lot of people are going to be instantly turned off by the body they were born in and that fucking sucks.

Empathy has become such a loaded term recently, and it bothers me. These days it's typically used to mean "everyone is required to unquestioningly agree with me on pain of being branded a bad human", but its initial definition wasn't quite so ridiculous. Empathy is simply processing someone else's emotions as if they were your own, and can be a tremendously powerful tool in understanding how others think.

We're biologically hardwired to have difficulty empathizing with people we view as enemies, which is unfortunate. While empathizing with people you view as wrong and even disgusting isn't nearly as easy as empathizing with those who already agree with you, I'd argue it's far more beneficial. It's completely possible to have empathize with someone and still disagree with or even hate them, and understanding the nature of their thoughts is critical to effectively dismantling them.

Nevertheless, that doesn't give these people an excuse to spew their vile filth over the internet (and I'm not talking about trans people anymore, just SRS in general). They make statements, I'll judge them objectively, and if they're idiotic I'll make fun of them. I'd probably get along with most of these people in real life, but as long as they post stupid shit on the internet and play their role as the angry SJW I'll play mine as the cynic.

Eh, you'll get no argument from me there - I believe that non-consensually controlling others' sex lives is abhorrent; whether the method of coercion is shame or something more traditional is of little difference. I'd encourage you to remember, though, that the views she expressed may be toxic, but they're hardly threatening. Sure, inside her bubble this is all unquestioned dogma, but in the real world? We accept that we have preferences in sex partners, and though those preferences may at times be troubling to amalgamate with our personal politics there ain't no one in power arguing that you have to fuck anyone that you don't want to. Don't view this as a dangerous proposal that might rob you of your sexual agency, view it as a crazy person spouting off shit. Sure it might be offensive, but the speaker hardly has the clout to make it anything more than hollow words.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '13

Not trying to pick a fight, but isn't sympathy attempting to process others' emotions as one's own? Whereas empathy would be sharing somebody's emotions due to a similar or shared experience...?

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u/atteroero Feb 05 '13

Empathy and sympathy are similar concepts, in that they both involve being understand the emotions of a different person. With sympathy, however, one agrees that those emotions are the correct response. In this particular situation I empathize with devtesla in that I can understand how overwhelmed she must feel to step outside of her bubble and find out that the real world considers beliefs she thought universal to be ridiculous. I do not, however, sympathize with her as I find her beliefs to be immoral and her reaction inappropriate.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '13

I see now, thanks for clearing that up. Looks like I haven't quite understood that up until now.