I didn’t mean to offend trans-anyone

A riveting image from "Leaking Tranny Fluid 2"

Earlier this year I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post for the sex culture site Fleshbot called “New for 2012: Something Called Transsexuals.” It got some hate mail so was taken down by the editor.

Mine is but one of the many great voices on that site. Of the thousands of stories I have published there in my nearly seven years of employment, the transsexual story was the only one of mine that ever got pulled.

Here it is:

New for 2012: Something Called Transsexuals

This new thing, people who have the tops of women, the voices of call center representatives, and the lower halves of men…Well, you’d think with all that novelty they’d crack a smile now and then.

With a title like “Leaking Tranny Fluid” (2), just the fact that there is a playable DVD in the box is already an embarrassment of riches atop the joy of owning something—anything—called “Leaking Tranny Fluid” (2).

But the DVD is filled to awkward, transactional bursting with the best ladyboys from Thailand and trannies from Brazil, having dead-eyed sex for money.

While an occasional katoey gets a customer service glint in her eye, it is the Brazilians who make the most eye contact, second only to the men who love them.

(In fact, most tranny videos of this kind seem to be fan videos, with the fully-male partners appearing to be the most happy to be there.)

I once asked a tranny aficionado why it seemed that many porn trannies had a Don’t Bother Me look and he replied that “men who like transsexuals really like them, so trannies in general haven’t developed an Eager to Please gene.”

Well, who would need to? There’s so much Science going on there anyway!

· Buy “Leaking Tranny Fluid 2” (thirdworldxxx.com)

I have come to understand that porn means different things to different people, and it is taken especially seriously, I’ve found, by people who are under-represented elsewhere.

If you were to say, for example, that “Porn is harmful to women,” you would encounter stiff resistance from people who’d point out that porn is one of thousands of ways women can be popularly represented.

But there aren’t too many other places that transsexuals are represented, thus making criticism of a transsexual porn movie—even one with such an intentionally ridiculous title like “Leaking Tranny Fluid”—seem much more pointed.

That’s what I’m guessing, anyway, because the article got this response from San Francisco “queer” pornographer Courtney Trouble:

I’m going to have to stop following Fleshbot, and providing free material to the site, unless something is done about this article. How did this get published? Lux?????
Drew Deveaux, an incredible porn star, was featured as one of Fleshbot’s Crushes of 2011 mere days before this total shit of a review showed up. How do you do that, and then post this?!?!?
It’s transphobic, badly written, misogynist, and so many other things.
Gram I am so disappointed right now. Thought you were cool. I was so, so wrong.

In my near-decade of writing about porn, I have occasionally run afoul of people who once thought I was “cool” (let’s say, when I give their movies good reviews) who, based on something else I write, take it all back. I get garbled emails full of resentment, betrayal, and accusations of “h8ing.’

My belief about porn in general is that it was bound to happen, but that no one has an obligation to like it. If I don’t think a performer is performing with the delight of the audience in mind, it doesn’t make me mis-anything or otherwise anything-phobic to say so.

 

Or that criticism of some transsexual performers must somehow indicate a blanket dismissal of transsexuals (and, by the same offense-seeking logic, women) in general.

There are transsexual hookers throughout America, Brazil, and Southeast Asia who make a little extra cash by shooting porn. Their scenes often look like nothing more than value-added ATM transactions caught on tape.

But my belief about certain types of tranny movies does not prejudice me against the porn of a Domino Presley or even a Courtney Trouble.

I do recognize, however, that there is a group of people for whom porn is their statement about identity, politics, and expression. Straight porn also went through that period 30 years ago, which is why we can enjoy “This Ain’t The Flintstones XXX” now.

Perhaps for these people a sense of humor is low on the list of priorities compared to the weighty goal of representing our millennial gender fluidity. Perhaps someone more in tune than I could have done critical justice to “Leaking Tranny Fluid 2.”

Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Trouble with a Capital T (and that stands for transfolk); “Seven Minutes in Heaven 3″—What Would Steve Miller Do?; April Flores “Solo” (and, later, with Buck Angel) ; “You’re Not One of Us”—A Steveporn Odyssey
See also: Third World Media

About Gram the Man 4399 Articles
Gram Ponante is America's Beloved Porn Journalist

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