[Two Pronged] Transwoman problems 2

Jeremy Baer, Margarita Holmes

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

A transwoman is willing to bear hurt and disappointment for a man who may be abusing their relationship

SUFFER FOR LOVE? How much inconsiderate behavior should you stomach before calling it quits?

Dr Margarita Holmes and Jeremy BaerRappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes. Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years, as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.

Together, they have written two books: “Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality” and “Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.”

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer: 

I am a pre-op transwoman. I have a foreign boyfriend who looks at me as if I were a true woman. He asked me if I were a top or a bottom.

But I am a woman, I feel like a woman and I do what real women do in bed, I told him. Therefore, I am a bottom.

But why is my boyfriend (Robert) like that? He told me he looks upon me as a woman, so why does he have to ask me whether I am a top or a bottom?  Does he think this is what transwomen do in real life? Am I just his sexual fetish? He knows I am a transwoman. I didn’t hide anything about my person. 

(The men I meet on these websites) ask more questions about sex than about other aspects of myself, even if we are just on the getting-to-know-you stage. Is that natural, Mr Baer? Dr Holmes? – Joy

***

Dear Joy:

In last week’s column, “Transwoman Problems,” Jeremy explained how people are more honest about their different sexual orientations and gender identities.

If Robert hopes to have sex with someone else (let’s say you, Joy) he would be curious about how sex will be like with you. If Robert is straightforward, he may ask you just straightforwardly, the way he did: “Are you top or bottom?”  

This might be a good sign, showing Robert to be a man who clarifies what confuses him asap, so that he can concentrate on the essential—a deep relationship with you that goes beyond the physical. And yet the physical is important because, having met at a website that focuses on transgenders and those who wish to have relationships with them, that is the very basis of your meeting: you are a transsexual looking for relationship/s and he is a person curious about or excited by relationships with transsexuals. This might be a bad sign, however, if all he wants is to cut to the chase, ending with you as the prize, a mere sex object to satisfy him.

Jeremy’s advice seems particularly apt at this point: “(If his questions are) based on ignorance rather than malice, give him the benefit of the doubt and treat it as an opportunity to teach him. If however you think he should (by this time) be well aware of the issues involved, tread carefully because …your instinct that (you are) a sexual fetish may not be far from the mark.”

Can you tell us more about your interactions, dearest Joy, so we can help answer your questions more accurately? – Margie

*** 

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr. Baer:

Thank you once more for your answering my letter. Here is the way our communication goes: We talk via Facebook and Skype everyday. I make sure I tell him what I am feeling, but every time I do so,  it seems he gets horny because our conversation always goes back to sex. 

Yesterday is an example. We were chatting and I got hurt because while he was talking to me, he kept on liking the different photos of different transwomen on the site. Of course I got angry. I felt he was getting bored with me. So I made tampo (pouted at him) and after that I no longer paid any attention to him. He became emotional and it was only then that I learned that he has a big problem. He keeps on saying he is a loser and keeps on failing at everything he does. – Joy

***

Dear Joy:

Uh-oh.  I so hope you won’t think I am rash in judging when I say I don’t think Robert is the man for you. Here’s why:

When you made tampo, thus telling him that he did something that displeased you, he neither apologized nor tried to find out more about what he did so he could explain/rectify matters. Instead, he shifted the conversation back to himself, giving you some sob story about how much of a loser he is.

This is a man who doesn’t listen. Either he is too thick to pick up on your making tampo, or he doesn’t care about how you feel.

If all you wanted was a quick coupling and then goodbye, it wouldn’t matter. However, you want more than that, don’t you, Joy? And this man will probably bring you only heartache in the end.   

By the way, Jeremy agrees with me 100%. – Margie

***

Dear Dr. Holmes and Mr Baer:

I hear what you’re saying, but I love him. I cannot explain why but I love him so much. I am not afraid of being hurt or disappointed. In all my relationships, I make sure that I give my 100%. And if they leave me anyway, at least it won’t be painful because I know I gave it my all. I will not wonder if I was lacking in any way, because I know I did my best.  

Oh, Dra. and Sir Jeremy, I feel like crying because of all this drama in my life! Thank you again for all your messages to me. – Joy

*** 

Dear Joy,

I must say that your last message is a bit confusing. You love Robert so much but you cannot give any reasons for doing so (you have not been so parsimonious with your complaints about him). You say “I am not afraid of being hurt or disappointed,” yet “if they leave me anyway, at least it won’t be painful because I know I gave it my all.”

It is, I think, fair to assume that as a transwoman your choice of partners is more limited than if you were cisgender. The law of supply and demand operates just as much here as anywhere else and it is a buyer’s market, unfortunately for you. 

Having said that, I suggest you analyze what you are prepared to do to have any relationship. It strikes me that you are setting yourself up for failure if you say that by giving it your all, any relationship is worthwhile. This presupposes that a bad relationship is better than no relationship. Not everybody would subscribe to this belief and it is difficult to give credence to the notion that the pain of a failed relationship can be assuaged by the knowledge that one party has done his or her best, even if the other has not. 

Wishing you the best, while suggesting that Robert is not for you. – Jeremy

***

Dear Joy:

Thank you so, so much for your patience in answering my questions and I so hope you will feel sulit (worth it), as opposed to sayang (what a waste!), to spend all this time and effort.

I am a little worried you might feel this way as the two things I wish to share with you are mere hypotheses, with no research to back it up, but a whole lot of clinical experience.

The clinical experience I speak of is not only with transwomen whom I have not spent as much time as I would like, but more so with other women who may feel at a disadvantage because they feel there are far fewer men than the women who want them.   

Hypothesis 1: Because it is a buyer’s market, many men who seek relationships with transwomen feel they can get away with many things that they know they could not get away with were the relationship more equal. 

Robert kept “liking” other women’s photos, despite talking with you at the same time, behavior that many other women would consider a lack of respect they would refuse to accept.

This is easier to do when a woman doesn’t know she can be immediately replaced by another woman who has the same qualities that initially attracted the man (and the reason he joined this website) in the first place. This is a sad reality when the relationship is not between equals in an arena (physical attributes) that ought to matter least, but alas, not to the women involved, not how real a person you are, but how easily you can be replaced by a man too shallow to appreciate the qualities that make you stand out as an individual.

Hypothesis 2: Please, please, Joy, be aware that you may make yourself a victim of your self-fulfilling prophecy. I had an inkling this occasionally happened to women who had the view that suffering was what proved a woman loved a man, but my first real experience with it was when I guested in “Gandang Ricky Reyes” and he in effect told me that women were born to suffer, especially when in love with “real” men (which I guess implied men who had no regard for what their girlfriends wanted and thought only of themselves, the way other neanderthals are wont to do).

I fear you may have the same view as Ricky, especially if all your previous relationships suffered the same fate: the man took the love, joy and resources you had to give and left when it was no longer convenient to stay. Instead of railing against such bastard-like behavior, you merely accepted it as your due, the way you feel most women would.  

Women who feel they have no real choices in life may feel that way, but you don’t have to, Joy. Should you meet a group that helps in giving you self-confidence, and/or a man who is worth it and/or a way to find it within yourself to put aside all this bull and be willing to risk another way of behaving, please feel free to write us again in case you want even more encouragement for this “new beginning.”  

Ingat ka sana lagi (take care always). – Margie

– Rappler.com


Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email desk@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED.

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