LogFAQs > #964888369

Zareth posted...

Femboys and traps still identify as male, so if you're male and into them, then yes it is gay

But if your preference is solely because they appear female, then their own perception of their gender doesn't really matter as much as which parts of your own brain are reacting and why. Your brain is seeing them as female and reacting accordingly, which would be a straight response. Even if they do have a dick.

There've actually been a couple anecdotal studies done on this sort of thing. I remember a research project years ago that implied a very strong correlation between transsexual porn and male viewers who generally identified as straight. Essentially, gay men are less likely to be attracted to trans porn than straight men are, especially the more feminine the focus appears.

Beyond that, there's also the argument that things like art or cartoon characters have no gender (because they have no innate awareness of their own gender identity, and arguably don't even have primary sex characteristics at all if their creator hasn't drawn those details), but humans will still read their own definition of visible sex characteristics and presentation to assume a gender (and potentially exhibit sexual attraction). Which can lead to weird bait-and-switch situations when you're dealing with anime pretty boys or odd hentai. It doesn't really matter if a character is canonically male if it looks 99% female and that's how your brain is processing it.

That line of thinking also raises questions about furries and bestiality (mainly in the sense of the question of just which parts the person is actually attracted to, and where precisely they draw the line), as well as questions of pedophilia (does it matter if a hentai artist says their character is really 700-years old if they look 8 and are having sex?). Attraction isn't necessarily always about what something is, or believes themselves to be, but how we see them from our own perspective.

(Which is also the point where questions like "Would you still love me if I was hideously burned all over my body?" or "Could you still love your partner if they were just a brain in a jar?" or other questions of physical identity start getting asked.)

Basically, human brains are funny ol' things.