[Medusa]

Ok, Snowy just made me have a lightbulb moment.

So, I called Snowy and said, "What am I missing here? How is this not about desire?"

The answer is that it IS about desire until it's not.

I read back a little further in this thread and see something here that happens a lot on the Planet (and it online spaces in general).

When we start out talking about desire (and this thread in it's baby-state IS about desire "What attracts you..."), we often fall into this pattern of talking about markers.

Markers like what makes a Femme or a Butch or a Transperson attractive to us.

"...holding doors", "...pulling out chairs", "...driving the flirtation"

Those markers, and the conversation around them, often ends up being a grunt-fest of who can out-Femme, out-Butch, or out-Trans the next person. Because let's face it, there are a lot of single folks up in these threads talking about their desires. It plays out like a dating thread sometimes.

When we do that, I think some of us start holding up those (unexamined) markers as what I like to call "the apex of dick mountain". It's very Patriarchal.

It's the kind of stuff that implies that Femmes don't hold doors open for their partners or that "true" or "real" or "old school" Butches do x, y, z.
That stuff needs to be examined. Thoughtfully and dynamically.

I think it's ok to say and want "the person I'm interested in to hold a door open for me". Where we get into that unexamined area is when we lock up on "Transmen hold doors open".
Because people are not absolutes.
Neither are genders.
And certainly not desires.

The lightbulb moment for me is that all of this might be rooted in desire but that when it bumps up against the cadre of -ims, it is no longer about desire but about that ingrained crap we've been fed as women and men.
That may not change what we want from the people we desire but we damn well better understand why.

I have more but am still processing.

Thanks for letting me blather.