Having your tits objectified.

[Cairus]

Okay, I got a lot of good advice with a problem I was having in another thread, so I was hoping maybe ya'll could share some insight on this/share your experience:

Yesterday, my boyfriend admitted to me that he 'stares at my boobs all of the time.'  I know I probably looked less than pleased to hear this, and so he said, 'What? You want me to call them something else? Man cans?'  Now, I bind pretty much constantly, and my chest is an A-34, so when I bind I get them so flat it isn't even funny. I even bind when him and I are alone. I take it off for sleep, showering, and sex. Flat as a BOARD if I'm in a shirt anything less than tight. So I asked him, 'Where. What 'boobs'? Show me, what boobs are you 'staring at all of the time'?'

So he stared at my chest with this confused look, like he was trying to figure out where they went. Trying to FIND them. And he says, 'Oh, you're binding right now.' Words can't convey how incendiary this is to me. I bind all day every day and can't get a full breath of air so that my 'lover' can proceed to not even tell the difference and stare and nod to himself over a pair of tits that can't even be SEEN through my clothes? When I didn't say anything, he said, 'LOOK, okay, I see how you could be pissed that I stare at your boobs, because you think I'm implying you're a girl, but that's NOT-' I was too mad to have this discussion rationally, so I told him no, and leave me alone.

I'm not pissed because he's 'implying I'm a woman'. I'm extremely hurt because him 'ogling' them perversely even when there is obviously nothing to see is undermining an assertation of my masculinity(binding) like there isn't even any difference. I feel like I can't escape, I'm with someone who knows I'm trans and knows I'm a man but I STILL can't escape from him staring at my chest and imagining what's under there, and when I think of that it makes me want to puke. What is this, what's been seen, can't be unseen? I'm violently depressed over this. Once a person with tits, always a person with tits, and I barely even have any, but they STILL manage to color and ruin my f#$@ing life.

I'm thinking about how I never should have let him see me without a binder on, how if I ever have company over to stay the night, even if they know I'm trans, I can't take the binder off, ever. He's been asking me to stay the night, and I've been thinking about how this is a choice between bruising my ribs by wearing a binder even while I sleep(I've lived that life before, I can't do it), not having the company over any more, or HAVING MY BOOBS STARED AT. The most bearable of these options is to just be alone all of the time and not have him around anymore.

It's not that boobs 'make me a woman'. They're a sign that I'm female, which is something I can't help but view unto myself as some disgusting disease/mutation, and he thinks I'm supposed to be 'cool' with getting them 'checked out' because that's what people who are sexually attracted to each other DO. I like boobs on other people, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with them on me. How can I explain to him that this is not okay? He's clueless. He thinks MTF girls are 'okay' with it when you objectify their penis. A mixture of ignorance and porn. Sure, it goes without saying that objectifying anyone's sexual parts is supposedly mean- but how can I explain the seriousness of it for someone who's transsexual, the dysphoria, in simple enough language? I can't make him not attracted to them... I feel so hopeless and miserable.

tl;dr: What do you do when someone objectifies the boobs you weren't even supposed to have in the first place, that you spend/spent tons of time trying to hide? And for MTFs, what about someone trying to see through your dress, searching for balls, or obsessing over hot 'hawt' your penis is? Is this OKAY? Why or why not? What do you do when this happens? How do you explain this to someone you love, who is thick headed?

[Alyx.]

Oh god, if someone was obsessed with my junk, I'd be so pissed and creeped out...

[V M]

I like my boobs now that I have some. I'm hoping to find someone who likes them too 

[Cairus]

I like my boobs now that I have some. I'm hoping to find someone who likes them too 

Okay, so you wanted boobs, naturally you'd prefer for them to be appreciated. I do not want my boobs. I HATE them. Do you have a penis, or stubble, that you feel the need to shave off/hide when you wear dresses or whatever? What would you do, how would you feel if someone was trying to look through your dress/around your collar to stare at it and look for it, as a 'sign' of your natal sex, even when it's put away/shaved off? Trying to see it under your clothes? Got upset when you shaved or tucked because you're taking those things away from plain view? Then getting mad at you if you felt upset about this obsessing?

[Fenrir]

I say talk to him seriously about this. He may not realise how hurtful he's being to you, not to mention the physical damage you could sustain by binding overnight trying to make him perceive you differently... the way he said it seems callous and insensitive, but give him the benefit of the doubt at first, it may be pure ignorance that leads him to make such comments.
That being said, really don't stay with him if it will end up with you being unhappy or unsatisfied. Gender identity is quite a central thing to most people, and if he's not serious about considering you in the way you want, there is no reason to stay with him. Find someone more open-minded who will love you for who you really are. There will be someone out there who can treat you better than this guy. People who ogle others body parts 'all the time' I don't trust anyway.

[YoungSoulRebel]

I like my boobs now that I have some. I'm hoping to find someone who likes them too 

[looks at the section this was posted in; points furiously]

If you're not going to read his post, then why do you respond?  He's made a lengthy post to "FTM talk", venting about something that's bothering him, and you've made an obviously (and hopefully unintentionally) insensitive remark as if you couldn't even be arsed to care.  I've seen the TS women here do this sort of thing *a lot* -- as a TS man, that makes my presence here feel marginalised, like what the "MTFs" say and think automatically has more weight.  I really hope your not intending to do this; I'd like to think that TS women would be a little sensitive toward TS men, because while there are very apparent differences between us, the gut feeling that one's body is wrong is still there, and so there is plenty of the same baggage that comes along with that.


*cough*  OK, now to respond to the post....


Man, I know how you feel -- at least I think I do (as I've said a hundred times in other posts already, I was wearing a 38-K bra before surgery and therefore couldn't even bind, cos it wouldn't have done any good, and getting it any kind of tight would have put my life in danger).  And having tits the size of your head can give you a real complex about it.  At some point, i just had to stop dating heterosexual and het-leaning bisexual mean -- they never intended to, but at the end of the day, they always ended up making me feel worse about it.  You can't really fault a guy for being into what he's into, you may even like hanging out with him in spite of it, but I think it's far better to be single than to put up with some boyfriend (or girlfriend, for all you guys who like the wimmenfolk) who doesn't realise what an ass he's being.  Just because you're TS doesn't mean you're less worthy of certain basic dignities in a sexual/romantic relationship.

[Cairus]

I say talk to him seriously about this. He may not realise how hurtful he's being to you, not to mention the physical damage you could sustain by binding overnight trying to make him perceive you differently... the way he said it seems callous and insensitive, but give him the benefit of the doubt at first, it may be pure ignorance that leads him to make such comments.
That being said, really don't stay with him if it will end up with you being unhappy or unsatisfied. Gender identity is quite a central thing to most people, and if he's not serious about considering you in the way you want, there is no reason to stay with him. Find someone more open-minded who will love you for who you really are. There will be someone out there who can treat you better than this guy. People who ogle others body parts 'all the time' I don't trust anyway.

I'm not sure what to tell him, how to explain how deeply hurtful this is to me and why. 'Stop being attracted to my boobs, because I wish I didn't have them'? I can't make someone not like them. I can't think of an appropriate analogy. He's under the impression that if HE had boobs or an evil tumor or something and people were staring at them all of the time, 'it would be weird', but he'd be 'cool with it'. I know I'm already coming across to him as hypersensitive because I'm too easily 'set off' by things like this. So I don't know how to get him to empathize, or how to put him in my shoes in a way that would get him to understand how I feel.

He wants me to talk to him about it over coffee later today, and I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I'm scared of not being able to be succinct and easily understood, just thinking about it makes me want to yell 'SCREW YOU!', but that's not a sufficient answer. I can't just ignore him forever because I can't sort my own thoughts well enough to coordinate a strong, clear explanation.

Edit: Also, this isn't relevant, but your hair is friggin GLORIOUS.

[YoungSoulRebel]

Gender identity is quite a central thing to most people, ...

I'd say it's because Gender Identity is such a central thing that the overwhelming majority of Cisgender persons take theirs for granted and that's what leads to so much unintentional insensitivity toward TS/TG/GQ/etc..., persons.

[Kurzar]

Man, I know how you feel -- at least I think I do (as I've said a hundred times in other posts already, I was wearing a 38-K bra before surgery and therefore couldn't even bind, cos it wouldn't have done any good

I soooooo know how you feel. I have DD's and I see no sense in trying to bind. They aren't going to go away and not be noticed. I need top surgery before people stop seeing my chest and then saying 'ma'am'. 

I have to agree that he may know your TG but sounds like he's not really respecting it. In the long run this may get worse and I somehow doubt sitting him down to 'explain' will get much of anywhere.  Is he a Bi guy or was he hetero before your relationship?  If he was hetero then he's gonna be very much into boobs like every other hetero guy I know, and even if he was Bi if he leaned towards female pref then it's  still going to be an issue.  I'm lucky in the fact my guys are both gay so it's easy for them to pretty much ignore the chest lumps.

[Fenrir]

You could always write a letter-type-thing (speech notes? Is that too formal?) to set out your main points. I sympathise, I can't explain myself well without preparation, and especially not while angry. I think you explained yourself quite well in your first post, really. You could even show it to him to put across just how hurt and angry this makes you if you'd prefer.
The problem is, he can't really relate because he doesn't have life experience of this kind of thing, so it may be hard to get through to him. As it is it doesn't sound much like he's really listening to you, just dismissing whatever you've said to him when you've tried to explain in the past. Your analogies sound reasonable. If this has been going on for a while, and his understanding has still not improved and he cannot respect how you are, then there is no point in staying with him. I'm sorry that it keeps coming back to this, but a relationship is about being with someone who makes you happy, that you feel comfortable around and who will listen to you when you talk. It's nothing to do with hypersensitivity, don't let this notion pressure you into supressing your true feelings. 

[V M]

Sorry, I didn't mean to upset anyone and I can see your point

True, I'm not real happy about having facial hair or a penis. I also wish I was about 5'8-10" rather than 6'2" and had smaller feet.

I agree constant ogling creeps me out too 

[Fenrir]

Edit: Also, this isn't relevant, but your hair is friggin GLORIOUS.

Why, thank you. 

[gravitysrainbow]

My advice is this: don't try to make him understand or empathize, because he really can't. I'm not trying to be insensitive toward cis-folks' abilities to sympathize, because they're certainly capable of that. But dysphoria is something that is hard, if not impossible, to understand if you have never felt it. Any hypothetical, any comparable analogy, is not enough. You have no responsibility to find a way to make him understand something he has probably never dealt with, and probably never will.

All you need to do is make him understand your feelings about it: that when he draws attention to the parts of your body that you're unhappy with, it makes you frustrated, and angry, and "violently depressed." Explain to him that you have this reaction no matter what his motives are. Even if he sees you as the manliest man in the world, you are not comfortable having attention drawn to those parts of your body. That should be enough to encourage him to tread a bit more carefully, until it becomes second nature to him.

Hope that helps.

[YoungSoulRebel]

I soooooo know how you feel. I have DD's and I see no sense in trying to bind. They aren't going to go away and not be noticed. I need top surgery before people stop seeing my chest and then saying 'ma'am'. 

I have to agree that he may know your TG but sounds like he's not really respecting it. In the long run this may get worse and I somehow doubt sitting him down to 'explain' will get much of anywhere.  Is he a Bi guy or was he hetero before your relationship?  If he was hetero then he's gonna be very much into boobs like every other hetero guy I know, and even if he was Bi if he leaned towards female pref then it's  still going to be an issue.  I'm lucky in the fact my guys are both gay so it's easy for them to pretty much ignore the chest lumps.

Yeah, my room-mate and I used to date -- started dating about nine years ago, and it lasted three years.  After I moved back to Ann Arbor, we tried briefly dating very casually again, but I just said "look, you're my best friend and I'm always going to have this affection toward you, but you very obviously prefer women; you say you see me completely as a guy, but you prefer women and large breasts, so you have to understand how this makes me uncomfortable -- and if we held this off until after my surgery, all of your porn is about big natural tits, I'd feel like you were just remembering The Wonder Twins* the whole time."  He's still my best friend, but having our old relationship back is out-of-the-question; it's just too uncomfortable.

Yeah, being single sucks, but not half as much as that nagging feeling that whomever it is I'm dating is looking at / wishing for my tits.  That pesky feeling will ultimately destroy the relationship.



*This is how I coped with boobs -- i decided that they were actually Superheroes from an alien planet who had taken refuge in my chest due to finding Earth's atmosphere hostile.  When I was about twenty (when they seriously went up from G to K for no explicable reason and just stayed there), they received a signal from their home planet that not only served as a homing beacon, but also gave them enough ultraviolet protection to make their way home safely through the current atmosphere, but couldn't find their way out of my chest.  By having surgery, i was saving some small distant planet by returning their only hope for survival.

[Silver]

What do you do when someone objectifies the boobs you weren't even supposed to have in the first place, that you spend/spent tons of time trying to hide?

Ignore it, or become temporarily depressed as the dysphoria sets in. If you can't hide them, then what else can you do?

Is this OKAY? Why or why not? What do you do when this happens? How do you explain this to someone you love, who is thick headed?

Not really okay, but since most people don't understand trans issues I guess we've gotta consider their feelings/ignorance too. You've already explained, right? Sounds pretty frustrating seeing as how he's always ogling your flat chest. Actually a little creepy.

If it bothers you enough, and he's really that thick-headed leave the guy. As for me, I semi-calmly explained that I hate them and will at some point get them removed and I'd prefer that they be ignored. I've got a real considerate guy with me.

[Osiris]

I don't think your boyfriend was trying to remind you that your body is female. It's possible to make feminine features look masculine. Sometimes when the core is so clearly male those features just don't strike  you as feminine and instead is just a part of that body.

The fact that he didn't notice that you were binding doesn't say to me that he's looking at your chest all the time and envisioning boobs, but that he admires your body as it is boobs and all and sees the whole package so to speak, not just obsessing over a certain element.

Of course I could be completely off base on this, and I do understand how upsetting it can be to hear something like that, I'm just trying to offer another perspective on it.

[Cairus]

You could always write a letter-type-thing (speech notes? Is that too formal?) to set out your main points. I sympathise, I can't explain myself well without preparation, and especially not while angry. I think you explained yourself quite well in your first post, really. You could even show it to him to put across just how hurt and angry this makes you if you'd prefer.
The problem is, he can't really relate because he doesn't have life experience of this kind of thing, so it may be hard to get through to him. As it is it doesn't sound much like he's really listening to you, just dismissing whatever you've said to him when you've tried to explain in the past. Your analogies sound reasonable. If this has been going on for a while, and his understanding has still not improved and he cannot respect how you are, then there is no point in staying with him. I'm sorry that it keeps coming back to this, but a relationship is about being with someone who makes you happy, that you feel comfortable around and who will listen to you when you talk. It's nothing to do with hypersensitivity, don't let this notion pressure you into supressing your true feelings. 

Thank you, sometimes I feel that part of being a 'normal guy' is doing things like looking at boobs, so I feel torn for being 'so hypersensitive' about having mine looked for. (After all, boobs, right? But I can't force myself not to feel ->-bleeped-<-ty about it anyway.) I'm torn about this because he has improved a lot, like you said, if he didn't show any signs of improvement I would've dropped him on his ass, but he's shown a reasonable amount of effort towards changing, and I can't fault a man who's trying because I haven't covered everything yet.

We started this relationship with him knowing I was tg but just referring to me and treating me like a girl anyway. When I explained how hurtful this was, he changed that. So that's gone away, he refers to me as male now, he doesn't pressure me to be 'girly' to fulfill his 'I want to look straight' needs, he doesn't out me, he even came out to his parents that he was dating a man. So it's not like he hasn't shown any effort at all; that's why I'm having such a hard time with this, because if he weren't trying to be understanding, I could take the easy way out and just dump him for someone from a less titmongering background. He knows titmongering on me is 'probably bad', because I get upset about it, but he doesn't understand WHY or HOW, like a puppy who pees on the floor or something, it knows enough to sometimes fear punishment, but still doesn't quite get what's going on.

I don't think your boyfriend was trying to remind you that your body is female. It's possible to make feminine features look masculine. Sometimes when the core is so clearly male those features just don't strike  you as feminine and instead is just a part of that body.

The fact that he didn't notice that you were binding doesn't say to me that he's looking at your chest all the time and envisioning boobs, but that he admires your body as it is boobs and all and sees the whole package so to speak, not just obsessing over a certain element.

Of course I could be completely off base on this, and I do understand how upsetting it can be to hear something like that, I'm just trying to offer another perspective on it.

I appreciate you trying to give me another perspective on this, because viewing things from angles where they're less hurtful is often helpful, especially because it can help one to avoid charging in livid for a discussion that's deeply personal and important, which is contrary toward having a productive discussion that facilitates understanding, as opposed to mutual embitterment.

The thing is, he's openly told me before that he wouldn't bother looking at my chest if there weren't any boobs there. That if I had surgery, he wouldn't be bothering to look. So it's not an 'I'm attracted to your body and look at your chest because it's you' thing, it's an 'I'm looking at your chest because there are boobs there' thing. It's not an 'I love you, therefore I look' thing, it's an 'I like boobs, and you have them' thing. Sure, the fact that they're my boobs could be factoring into it of course, but even that isn't exactly very reassuring in light of his previous statement.

[DamagedChris]

*This is how I coped with boobs -- i decided that they were actually Superheroes from an alien planet who had taken refuge in my chest due to finding Earth's atmosphere hostile.  When I was about twenty (when they seriously went up from G to K for no explicable reason and just stayed there), they received a signal from their home planet that not only served as a homing beacon, but also gave them enough ultraviolet protection to make their way home safely through the current atmosphere, but couldn't find their way out of my chest.  By having surgery, i was saving some small distant planet by returning their only hope for survival.

Your nerd analogies and references get my nerd senses tingling. Dude, I love you for that.

Ahem....now back on topic.

As other people mentioned, talk to him on it...and don't worry about being hypersensitive. A relationship is for both people to be happy, and even if you are being irrational with your complaints (which in this case I don't think you are--I actually broke it off with my ex boyfriend because he actually told me he would have a hard time being with me if I didn't have tits. As if having boobs validated my place on this planet. ) it doesn't matter, because EVERY issue in a relationship imo deserves talk time and should be free to be discussed openly.

As far as what the achieved effect will be, who knows...because as he's admitted this, it might stick in your mind now that he's always oogling you, even when he's not. Similar to YoungSoulRebel mentioned him thinking his ex would just always be thinking about "wonder twins" you might always think he's daydreaming about your own. So in the end it might depend on both of you and how much you can communicate and put the episode behind you.

Sadly, this is why I'm avoiding as much undressed contact with my girlfriend as possible until top surgery...I'm afraid of her equating me with something I'm not.


P.S. Soul, I'm finding more and more Michigan FtMs in the last week  I'm actually not far from Ann Arbor now and grew up around there.

[Myself]

I'd tell them..
"ewwwwwwww! you want that? I don't! let's go cut it and give it to you.. creep!"

Tell him it repels you even having that part(s) attached to your body!
You weren't supposed to be born that way, you want to get rid of it, one day you won't even have it!

The problem is, he is your boyfriend, he is a guy. OF COURSE he will LOVE breasts.

Do you think he will stay with you when you start hormones or get rid of the breasts?
If not, maybe it's better to look for another one.

[Cairus]

I'd tell them..
"ewwwwwwww! you want that? I don't! let's go cut it and give it to you.. creep!"

Tell him it repels you even having that part(s) attached to your body!
You weren't supposed to be born that way, you want to get rid of it, one day you won't even have it!

The problem is, he is your boyfriend, he is a guy. OF COURSE he will LOVE breasts.

Do you think he will stay with you when you start hormones or get rid of the breasts?
If not, maybe it's better to look for another one.

He said he would. He's a hetero leaning bi guy. Body hair, dick, voice drop, he knows those will happen and claims it doesn't bother him. The boobs thing and having me CONSTANTLY be receptive in bed are our primary issues right now. He inadvertently competes with me for the 'man' role in this relationship, because he doesn't understand how transsexuals and gay relationships work.  The general attitude I get from him is, 'We're both guys and we like tits! Dude you're a guy who has tits! YEAH! SCORE!' Up until a couple weeks ago he was under the impression that 'in a gay relationship, one of the guys is the girl', and in lesbian relationships, 'one of the girls in the guy', which just points out that he doesn't really know or understand very many gay people and comes from a conservative background. He knows I'm going to get them removed and have hormone therapy, but claims he still loves me/wants to be with me. But we have to get through this crap.

Thank you, you made some good, succinct statements I can relay. There's been plenty of thoughtful advice in this thread that's been of huge value to me, I've written down bullets containing some of it to help me if I lose track or experience too much anxiety trying to go over my points with him to get myself understood.