My own style uses AMAB and AFAB strictly in the same manner as the full phrases spelled out. Thus it’s a person AMAB (“a person assigned male at birth”) and not *an AMAB (“an assigned male at birth” — what exactly is an “assigned male”?) nor *an AMAB person (“an assigned male at birth person” — that’s an odd bit of syntax, isn’t it?)
—Of course, acronyms do often undergo zero derivation, this is to be expected and generally is perfectly fine, but I think the risk of allowing this to happen with AMAB and AFAB specifically is that these terms will lose their original purpose and come to just be used as misguided euphemisms for male and female, and the world just doesn’t really need more synonyms of male and female, right?
Obviously, though, you couldn’t just replace “AMAB-on-AMAB sex when cum” with “person-AMAB-on-person-AMAB sex when cum” and expect this to be any better, because that phrase would be really clunky and would still indicate a sort of “binary mindset” about it.
Thus my own general rule for these sorts of situations is to think pona, i.e. what are the exact biological or physiological features in question? The most pona description of the law’s scope ends up just being the law itself, so then if we want to list examples of what the law would ban, we could say something like…
It bans ejaculation of semen either as a result of masturbation, fellatio, anal or non-penetrative sex without intent to donate or sell sperm, or as a result of penetrative sex between someone who produces sperm and someone who cannot conceivably become pregnant through natural insemination at the time the intercourse took place, except when this inability is the result of contraception. Under this law it would for instance be illegal to ejaculate inside someone postmenopausal or someone having a menstrual period, or likewise to ejaculate inside someone born without a uterus or ovaries, et cetera.
…Which is more clinical, but also far more precise and thoroughly divorced from a binary conception of AMAB-versus-AFAB as rigid categories.
too be honest my comments are really long a lot of the time and I just try to keep them briefer to save everyone’s eyeballs from falling out. My mistake. Here you go.
the bullet points were intentionally terse, missing multiple words that would have been required to form complete sentences. “AMAB jack off cum” = constructed so the reader fills in missing parts. I’m practically hemmingway over here ok lol.
Unconvinced about how amab and afab as nouns can be dehumanizing; since virtually all humans are either Assigned Female At Birth or Assigned Male At Birth. Is it possible to dehumanize 100% of humans in one go? what would that even mean?
It bans ejaculation of semen either as a result of masturbation, fellatio, anal or non-penetrative sex without intent to donate or sell sperm, or as a result of penetrative sex between someone who produces sperm and someone who cannot conceivably become pregnant through natural insemination at the time the intercourse took place, except when this inability is the result of contraception.
But that sentence is so hard to read, I just read it like 9 times and I am not sure if it conveys what my bullet list did. I think it is mostly pretty accurate on some of it but I am not sure. I get lost reading it. I’d have to print it out and use 2 or maybe 3 colors of highlighters to understand and my printer is in the other room. OTOH the way I wrote it, it was easily understandable.
It would be impossible to make a comprehensive list of all the the sex acts this law does or does not ban. Or to make a table of the combinations of people who are or are not allowed to have what kind of cums. Because it is inherently contradictory and stupid, which was The Point. Obviously, the monsters who wrote it had People Assigned Male At Birth and People Assigned Female At Birth in mind when they wrote it. They’re not interested in anyone’s identities or feelings or relationships. To go out on a limb, they are likely specifically interested in how people are Assigned. For example, trans men can have prosthetics or implants that ejaculate. Are these monsters interested in that? No not at all.
Under this law it would for instance be illegal to ejaculate inside someone postmenopausal or someone having a menstrual period, or likewise to ejaculate inside someone born without a uterus or ovaries, et cetera.
I don’t think where the cum occurs (inside or elsewhere) is at any issue? (ha). Potentially replacing amab with “semen ejaculator” or less funny “Person who ejaculates semen” if I am not allowed any fun would work (excepting the trans men…). But I don’t know if there is any real good word or phrase to describe what the monsters describe as “women”. It would need at least a dozen words and be totally unwieldy.
And actually I didn’t think of it at first but someone else pointed out that cum post-vasectomy is banned under this law in all situations. So that makes both of our descriptions wrong and I don’t even know how to address it.
All the argumentation aside I appreciate your time in thoughtfully elaborating on the very poorly-articulated original critique.
Come to think of it, “Discharged with the use of a contraceptive or contraceptive method intended to prevent fertilization of an embryo.” — what does it even mean to fertilize an embryo? You fertilize an egg to conceive an embryo, but you don’t fertilize the embryo, right? Wouldn’t that be like a matryoshka pregnancy?
…I guess that means any sex with contraceptives is then banned because contraceptives specifically intended to prevent matryoshka pregnancy do not exist. And how about wet dreams, for that matter?
I have more things to say about what you’ve written but I don’t really feel like it right now. Maybe when I have more energy again.
The more I think of this, the more and more and then less, and then more again, things come to mind. It is stupefying. A mindgame trap?
matryoshka pregnancy
So we are talking “they’re born pregnant” ala
Overall I agree this is an exhausting convo. Especially because I doubt either side is 100% correct, and we arguing about how to apply our imperfect analysis to describe a totally bonkers situation which kicks and screams against any framework, even a shitty one.
Because really the whole thing is some republicans cos playing as klingons who’ve traveled back in time to outlaw tribbles. That’s the hope you’ve given me anyway.
My own style uses AMAB and AFAB strictly in the same manner as the full phrases spelled out. Thus it’s a person AMAB (“a person assigned male at birth”) and not *an AMAB (“an assigned male at birth” — what exactly is an “assigned male”?) nor *an AMAB person (“an assigned male at birth person” — that’s an odd bit of syntax, isn’t it?)
—Of course, acronyms do often undergo zero derivation, this is to be expected and generally is perfectly fine, but I think the risk of allowing this to happen with AMAB and AFAB specifically is that these terms will lose their original purpose and come to just be used as misguided euphemisms for male and female, and the world just doesn’t really need more synonyms of male and female, right?
Obviously, though, you couldn’t just replace “AMAB-on-AMAB sex when cum” with “person-AMAB-on-person-AMAB sex when cum” and expect this to be any better, because that phrase would be really clunky and would still indicate a sort of “binary mindset” about it.
Thus my own general rule for these sorts of situations is to think pona, i.e. what are the exact biological or physiological features in question? The most pona description of the law’s scope ends up just being the law itself, so then if we want to list examples of what the law would ban, we could say something like…
…Which is more clinical, but also far more precise and thoroughly divorced from a binary conception of AMAB-versus-AFAB as rigid categories.
too be honest my comments are really long a lot of the time and I just try to keep them briefer to save everyone’s eyeballs from falling out. My mistake. Here you go.
the bullet points were intentionally terse, missing multiple words that would have been required to form complete sentences. “AMAB jack off cum” = constructed so the reader fills in missing parts. I’m practically hemmingway over here ok lol.
Unconvinced about how amab and afab as nouns can be dehumanizing; since virtually all humans are either Assigned Female At Birth or Assigned Male At Birth. Is it possible to dehumanize 100% of humans in one go? what would that even mean?
But that sentence is so hard to read, I just read it like 9 times and I am not sure if it conveys what my bullet list did. I think it is mostly pretty accurate on some of it but I am not sure. I get lost reading it. I’d have to print it out and use 2 or maybe 3 colors of highlighters to understand and my printer is in the other room. OTOH the way I wrote it, it was easily understandable.
It would be impossible to make a comprehensive list of all the the sex acts this law does or does not ban. Or to make a table of the combinations of people who are or are not allowed to have what kind of cums. Because it is inherently contradictory and stupid, which was The Point. Obviously, the monsters who wrote it had People Assigned Male At Birth and People Assigned Female At Birth in mind when they wrote it. They’re not interested in anyone’s identities or feelings or relationships. To go out on a limb, they are likely specifically interested in how people are Assigned. For example, trans men can have prosthetics or implants that ejaculate. Are these monsters interested in that? No not at all.
I don’t think where the cum occurs (inside or elsewhere) is at any issue? (ha). Potentially replacing amab with “semen ejaculator” or less funny “Person who ejaculates semen” if I am not allowed any fun would work (excepting the trans men…). But I don’t know if there is any real good word or phrase to describe what the monsters describe as “women”. It would need at least a dozen words and be totally unwieldy.
And actually I didn’t think of it at first but someone else pointed out that cum post-vasectomy is banned under this law in all situations. So that makes both of our descriptions wrong and I don’t even know how to address it.
All the argumentation aside I appreciate your time in thoughtfully elaborating on the very poorly-articulated original critique.
Come to think of it, “Discharged with the use of a contraceptive or contraceptive method intended to prevent fertilization of an embryo.” — what does it even mean to fertilize an embryo? You fertilize an egg to conceive an embryo, but you don’t fertilize the embryo, right? Wouldn’t that be like a matryoshka pregnancy?
…I guess that means any sex with contraceptives is then banned because contraceptives specifically intended to prevent matryoshka pregnancy do not exist. And how about wet dreams, for that matter?
I have more things to say about what you’ve written but I don’t really feel like it right now. Maybe when I have more energy again.
The more I think of this, the more and more and then less, and then more again, things come to mind. It is stupefying. A mindgame trap?
So we are talking “they’re born pregnant” ala
Overall I agree this is an exhausting convo. Especially because I doubt either side is 100% correct, and we arguing about how to apply our imperfect analysis to describe a totally bonkers situation which kicks and screams against any framework, even a shitty one.
Because really the whole thing is some republicans cos playing as klingons who’ve traveled back in time to outlaw tribbles. That’s the hope you’ve given me anyway.