70
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
70 points (100.0% liked)
Ask Men
1852 readers
3 users here now
A community to Ask Men questions and discuss any and all issues relating to them.
Unlocking Perspectives, Advice, and Empowerment for Men Everywhere.
Rules
Follow the rules of lemmy.world, which can be found here.
Additionally:
- Be respectful
- Try to engage in a positive & constructive manner
- No harassment, hate speech, or trolling
- Use appropriate language & tone.
- Share relevant content.
- Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions
- Report content that violates rules or needs moderator attention
Notes
-
The title of your post should contain the actual question being asked.
-
The rules are not meant to be exhaustive and may be modified/extended should if deemed necessary.
Would you like to help with moderating AskMen? Send a PM to the top mod.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I'm very confused, I don't see where they mentioned my sexual characteristics 😭
They open with a lot of stuff related to your transness. Looks for the ones that are asking about your hobbies and such, the ones that are actually intetested in your life.
"You don't look trans" and asking if you really are, or other reinforcements of how feminine you look.
These are compliments based on your physical characteristics that they find sexual because it is from potential partners on a dating site. It is very different than a platonic friend saying the exact same words because of the dating context.
It isn't indicating anything nefarious, just a sign that they are focused on that aspect and it is most likely a fetish for them. It often means they are just looking for sex and not a relationship. If they pivot to personality and other things about you shortly after then there is a better chance they see you as a whole person.
I know it can be hard to see because it is positive attention, and can give you a sense of gender euphoria, but they absolutely are fetishizing you, and it's not healthy to engage with it.
No honestly I don't like compliments, I just have a hard time telling the difference between a fetishistic one and a normal one
I am a cis man so my perspective may be a bit, uh, lacking, but I think somebody who is honestly interested will likely move right past the entire issue. In other words, they ought to be interested in you as a person, what you like, your goals or dreams for the future, that sort of thing.
Unfortunately, a very disturbing majority of other men I have met have very deep misogyny that warps the way they think about women. A former friend once asked, without irony, if I would be offended if my girlfriend put on a noticeable amount of weight. As if the only possible explanation would be that she was intentionally gaining weight to slight me. I immediately chewed his ass out, and that was also the beginning of the end of that friendship. 🤮
That said, I wish you the best of luck. My father shared a saying with me once: people come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime, but we rarely know in advance which one. Kinda sounds dumb, I know, but I still think there's some wisdom in there somewhere.
Edit: And I want you to know those man-children didn't deserve a woman of your caliber anyways! ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
Second edit: from one of your other comments -
Oof! That's gotta hit you in the feels, but sounds like you're right. :(