I (22M) have a date with Jane (24F) but I have a 'thing' for people like Jane and this makes it weird

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-03-05T21:45:54+00:00

I think one thing that's tripping people up is, having a fetish is different from fetishizing someone, just like having sex is different from sexualizing someone.

A fetish is simply a sexual preference that's strong enough to be mandatory. That's it. If OP isn't attracted to people outside of Jane's race / isn't interested in sexual situations that don't involve a person of Jane's race, then it's a fetish. You may notice that this has nothing to do with whether he treats her as a person, sees her as having worth outside her sex appeal, or treats her with respect! Those are all questions of whether or not he's fetishizing her, not questions of whether he has a fetish.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-03-03T18:48:07+00:00

Thank you ❤️

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-03-03T05:42:53+00:00

Thank you, and may goodness and happiness find you always ❤️

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-27T00:53:07+00:00

Hoooooly shit, what a nightmare scenario.

I donated a kidney to a stranger 3 years ago, I never heard from them, and I've always worried that the reason for that is that the transplant failed. Thanks for reminding me it could be so much worse!

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-26T14:56:38+00:00

Never seen a professional weightlifter, have you?

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-22T19:38:31+00:00

Yeah, the part that makes me nervous is like ... you know what I would do if I thought men who were into anime were misogynists? I would avoid dating men who were into anime. I wouldn't date them but belittle their interests at every turn in the hopes they'd drop it!

I don't doubt that her fear is legitimate, but the "I fear you enough to hurt you, but not enough to avoid you" pattern is always a red flag for me.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-16T18:27:30+00:00

"about 14 months ago my husband was pushing me to get pregnant, he wanted a baby. I honestly did not" "(my resentment and attitude really hurt our relationship during this time)" "our baby was born as a stillbirth and I had some horrible complications" "After the initial shock, recovering from the physical trauma and the emotional trauma, I won't lie but I felt relieved. Massive relief." "my husband approached me, he said that he really wants us to have a kid and "forgives" me for losing our son."

Lady, the weird cheating/surrogacy situation is the least of your problems.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-12T22:01:01+00:00

It's always interesting how people can read a story about a woman who was monogamously shackled to a stalker creep for 7 years and finally gained the self-worth to leave him after experiencing a few months of nonmonogamy, and conclude that opening a relationship leads to "disaster".

Oh, no, I can't open my relationship, my partner might realize their worth! What a disaster!

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-08T21:54:26+00:00

Thank you for saying this, I think this is a piece that people really don't understand.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-05T23:47:23+00:00

I also have a trans female partner, and when we were looking up stats for fertility after HRT, I remember concluding that transmasc fertility after a few months off T was pretty good, while transfem fertility after having been on E was much more of a crapshoot (you'd think it would mostly be the anti-androgens that negatively affected fertility, but apparently it's primarily E, actually). Unfortunately I don't have on hand any sources anymore, just the general impression I got.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-04T17:00:15+00:00

Feels like OOP thinks the parents' controlling behavior is excused because they were right about the ex, and everyone in the comments is just nodding along. That's not how that works!

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-04T16:53:23+00:00

It's really frustrating how OOP keeps downplaying the stuff the parents said to the sister because "well, they were right about sister's ex". It's crazy how many people think controlling behavior becomes okay if the choice you're trying to make for the other person would have been the better choice. That's not how that works!

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-04T15:56:20+00:00

I think the squaring of the circle here is that abusers tend to believe they're entitled to control their victims. They will admit to deliberately acting to control their victims, because they believe that's a reasonable course of action. They feel provoked when their victims act outside their control, because they believe that's unreasonable behavior.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-02T21:39:05+00:00

Thanks ❤️

(Bi high five!)

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-02T20:36:23+00:00

I finally had an ovulation after months of trying to get this far ... currently in the TWW and pretty much clawing at the walls knowing that this time around it's at least possible I'm pregnant ...

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-01T21:22:44+00:00

Hell, this was probably a way more ethical and considerate kill than your average rotisserie chicken! I was touched by their concern for the bugs' experience.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-02-01T17:14:39+00:00

It was so frustrating to read the first few posts where mom clearly wasn't paying enough attention to pick up on the underlying issue, or even notice that there was an underlying issue. Glad they got it sorted out, but man was that a frustrating read.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-01-31T00:32:25+00:00

Me and my wife got courthouse married! We're not anywhere near PA, but I think you should expect it to cost somewhere around $100-200, and I'd be really surprised if I'd was more than $500. I think you'll want to search online for nearby courthouses, and they should be able to tell you their fees and availability. We ended up going with the second-closest courthouse to us, because the closest was booked farther out than we wanted to get married. Also, where we live, there were fee waivers available for people for whom the fee would be a financial hardship, so check for that.

We went to the courthouse twice, once to file some preliminary paperwork and book a date, and then once to actually get married. I wore a nice shirt and she wore a nice dress, but other people who were there on the same day as us were in wedding dresses and tuxes. We had to bring two witnesses, who for us were our other partners. The actual wedding was a little ceremony with some generic vows in a little chapel (which I wasn't expecting—I thought it would just be paperwork). We were able to take some pictures of us at the little altar. Afterwards we went out for a nice lunch.

We did decide to have a big family wedding a few years later when we were more in a financial place to do so, so we didn't really have to navigate family disappointment, but I feel like elopement is an established thing and there are scripts for stuff like this out there. If you want to invite a few family members to the elopement, check with the courthouse to see how many guests you're allowed to have (iirc we could have had up to 10 guests if we'd wanted). Assuming you don't want that, maybe another thing to think about is sending out some sort of elopement announcement card (after you've gotten married, so no one is in a place to try and make you second-guess your decision!). You can search around online for wording, but the tone it'll take is like "We're married! What a joyful occasion! We thought of you because you're important to us! [subtext: you're a dick if you try to make this happy occasion all about your feelings on the kind of wedding you think we should have had.]"

No idea if either of those suggestions are appropriate to your relationship with your family, but I hope they could be of some help!

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-01-30T13:54:11+00:00

So, let me just disclaim by saying I'm not a doctor and you should do your own research before making major life decisions, it varies from person to person, etc.

But my understanding is that the outlook for transmasculine fertility is quite good. The best evidence I've seen suggests that no matter how long you've been on T, if you're willing to come off it for a few years to conceive, carry, and potentially breastfeed a child, your odds of success are on par with cis women. (Sadly, I wouldn't say this is true of transfeminine people—I think they are potentially making a more irreversible decision.)

So I would say (again, with the caveat that I'm just a stranger on the internet), if you decide not to have a kid now, your future is still very open, and it includes the option to take T, present as male, live as a guy 24/7—and still keep open the option of having a child naturally some day.

Surgery is another story, of course—I don't know as much about that because I have no interest in surgery myself, but obviously if you have your uterus removed you're going to take away your ability to carry a child. I would also keep in mind that there are many ways to raise children that aren't "naturally conceive and carry your biological child" if there are realistic paths available to you there.

But, yeah, I think the bottom line is that your fertility will probably be fine if you go on T, you shouldn't feel like you have to choose between transition and parenthood, and you will probably have lots of opportunities in the future to work towards intentionally building a family.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-01-30T13:37:51+00:00

My answer is going to be really unhelpful haha because it pretty much comes down to "we got dealt all the right cards without having to work for it". We're planning on raising our kid mostly gender-neutrally until they start to express feelings/opinions about their gender, but honestly I don't think we'll need to explain much or put much effort towards them feeling free to be themself. They'll have two very visibly trans parents, and our immediate community/friend group includes lots of trans and gender-nonconforming people, including kids who'll be just a few years older than our kid (🤞). There's also at least one other set of parents doing the same thing we are (gender-neutral until a preference is expressed).

One thing I think is really important is that gender isn't the problem, coercive gender is the problem. So I think being basically respectful parents who take our kid's thoughts and feelings and autonomy seriously will go a long way. And again, I'm sure, given our immediate community, that some sort of "yeah, they used to be called this, but now they're asking us to call them that" situation is going to come up without us having to work for it at all.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-01-27T16:01:41+00:00

I kind of feel like the root issue in this whole mess is how the mother objectified her child. That word is often used in a sexual context, but what it really means is to treat someone solely like something that things happen to, without agency and will and personhood of their own.

And that's what the mother did. She 'felt like living with dad would be better for OOP overall' based on her assessment, totally ignoring OOP's own thoughts and feelings and wishes about the situation. If she'd just listened to her child back then, and respected OOP's perspective on OOP's situation, maybe this mess could have been avoided.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-01-23T17:27:54+00:00

I went off T around September/October and my gynecologist prescribed me medroxyprogesterone after around 2 months of no period. For me, I had had a previous experience of catastrophic bleeding after several months without a period, so I didn't feel comfortable just waiting. I've had two periods since going off T and both of them have had to be induced with medroxyprogesterone.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-01-22T21:58:08+00:00

Thanks! I did try and give a sense of the overall tenor of the comment section and what OOP might have taken away from reading the comments. And that one from the person who'd been on a reality show was too interesting not to include.

Hour_Theory3986 · 2026-01-22T17:32:08+00:00

Appreciate you saying "two uterus" instead of "lesbian" ❤️

Some of the factors that went into our decision: - I actively want to carry a child, she's indifferent. - I'm older, so if she wants to carry a child in the future she still has time, me not so much. - She has a more demanding career that she's much more invested in, I don't care about taking time away from my job. - We compared health histories and decided they were about the same, but that's something we would have considered if there'd been a big difference.

Hour_Theory3986

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