Presumably a fair amount of speaking was required in order to arrange the details of the scenario. Maybe it relied upon detailed written instructions.
Entirely plausible.
Please keep in mind, Iām withholding judgement in this case. Itās too convoluted to make up my mind. But Iām absolutely willing to debunk bullshit where I already have expertise.
While the dynamics are different and assuming that the plaintiff is being completely honest, imagine it had been another way? A lesbian meets a guy who somehow manages to convince her that heās a woman, and has ten sexual encounters with her. Iām not claiming bias*, but I think people would be less willing to accept that his genetalial arrangements were irrelevant.
- (and this really isnāt an āIām not sexist butā¦ā comment. I think people would be rightly shocked, even if he claimed that she was coming to terms with her bisexuality)
100 hours blindfolded without suspecting anything though? Sheesh.
From the Independent article:
Newlandās deception begun in 2011 when she sent her victim a Facebook friend request after setting up a fake account in the name of āKye Fortuneā by downloading photos from an American manās Myspace page.
During online and phone communication, āMr Fortuneā told the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, that āheā had a close friend called Gayle Newland. The victim then became friends with Newland as well as Mr Fortune.
The victim said she noticed that Mr Fortune and Newland, who at the time was a Chester University student, had āreally similar accents, [but] his was just a bit deeperā. Describing how she fell for the con, she told the court: āWhen you Googled him, it came up with a Twitter account, Facebook account, a Bebo account. He seemed a feasible person. Iām still in shockā¦ coincidences keep flashing in front of me, like how Gayle and Kye shared the same birthday.ā
100 hours though?
Over the phone? Understandable. I canāt even recognize my own mother over the phone, because of the extreme and unnecessary mangling of the signal. In person though? Thatās a no-brainer. I think she was in denial, the whole time. Itās really fucking shitty she was tricked, and I think the accuser is culpable of the fraud for going through the motions of executing it (if she didnāt actually inform the accuser of her sex in the first place), but seriously, male and female voices are so different youād have to be some kind of martian or have some kind of atypical neurology to mix up a woman pitching her voice down with a maleās voice unless she were trying to sound like a male child.
ETA: Iām coming at this from the perspective of a bisexual male who doesnāt get any strange. If my online girlfriend turned out to be a dude who was into me, and I were into him from all our interactions, Iād only be mad that I was tricked generally, and wouldnāt trust him, but I donāt think Iād be angry with the genitalia swap as long as both genitalia are assumed relatively disease free. Itās not like she lied about being HIV positive. People are people and in my own humble opinion both male and female genitalia are sexy as fuck, and Iād be happy to play with whoeverās genitalia as long as Iām into them. I donāt get gender hangups, itās just something Iām not privy to. A lot of hetero males seem disgusted by dicks even though they have one permanently attached to themselves. They usually admit theyād suck it if they could reach it, so what makes sucking another dudeās dick gross? I donāt know, and itās not gross to me. Likewise with women.
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Itād be exactly as heinous. But Iād still consider the victim unperceptive if neurotypical. The willingness to have sex with someone literally sight unseen means that you ought to be willing to contract any sexually transmitted diseases that person has, and believe any lies they tell you, which as far as Iām concerned is much worse than getting the āwrongā genitalia. Genitals are just flesh and are fleeting. Most STIs last forever.
If I wasnāt clear, I meant presuming the truth of the accusation.
Iām in no position to know, myself
If the defendant went to the effort of creating multiple social network profiles specifically for the purpose of deceiving someone, this seems a lot more than a simple role playing situation. Naivete isnāt a crime and even if she did suspect something or was dealing with lesbianism, cognitive dissonance can make you believe the most incredible things. Maybe it made one woman think that a man was there, and the other woman think that she was OK with it. It was the defendantās responsibility to be sure in any case, and it seems pretty clear that this didnāt happen. People also have consensual sex involving alcohol and drugs, but if you do, youād better be absolutely sure that it is fully consensual.
I donāt think a lot of the things that happened in the relationship were inherently bad at all (role-playing, blindfolds, lesbian sex etc.), but it seems clear that the defendant was doing more than just role-playing - claiming that she couldnāt be seen because of the injuries from the car crash and that she had a brain tumour, setting rules like not touching the genitalsā¦ sounds very much like emotional manipulation.
The couple eventually got engaged. The victim, who insisted she was not attracted to women, said: āI told my friends I was engaged to a guy. Every time I met up with Kye Fortune, I either had the mask on already or he would wait outside the door and I would put it on. I was so desperate to be loved. Itās pathetic.
āIf I could go back and scream at me, I would. It does look ridiculous on paper.ā
My point is more that apart from considerations of STDs etc., this is a very similar situation and the fact that the victim was unperceptive would go against the defendant who took advantage of this, not the victim.
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Legally speaking, as far as Iām concerned the accused is culpable and did illegal things.
Iām commenting on the accuserās attitudes and conduct. Itās confusing that she wasnāt able to detect that āKyle Fortuneā was a woman. Itās confusing to me, personally, that the genitals of the person they loved was a deal-breaker. She did love Kyle Fortune, right? If so why were the genitals such a fucking big deal? So what if the genitals werenāt the key for her hole? Itās confusing to me that she seemingly (opinion alert) willingly let herself be deceived. That is all.
I agree that fraud is completely fucked up and wrong and worthy of prosecution. But I have a hard time believing the accuser didnāt play an active role in the fraud themselves, and I think itās still possible that she was legitimately defrauded and is deserving of recompense, even if she knowingly participated in the fraud as long as she didnāt give consent to sexual encounters with a woman, as shallow as I feel that type of discrimination is. And I also feel that she doesnāt have much standing to complain that she was visually deceived since she agreed to never look at the perpetrator of the fraud.
Cognitive dissonance leads to stupidity and crimes all the time.
āI love my 16 year old son, but heās gay, and the bible says kill him. So I lovingly killed my 16 year old son. Itās what Jesus wants.ā
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The idea of having sex with another guy doesnāt particularly interest me, but it doesnāt disgust me either. As far as Iām concerned, all sex and sexual desire is weird, but there it is. I would discriminate when looking for a partner, but I wouldnāt be horrified if a guy (or trans woman with male genitals) was interested in me. If they were up front about it in advance, that would be fine and not even necessarily out of the question in a context where I was looking for someone and I liked them. If they claimed to be a woman and had sex with me under false pretences, then I only found out about the deception later, I would be pretty offended. Not ātrans panicā style rage, but possibly bad enough to think about legal action in a situation like this. She may have loved Kyle, but Kyle didnāt exist.
As for willing deception, I think cognitive dissonance can be strong enough for me to believe that she was honestly deceived. Just.
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Fair enough.
The thing is, I know at least a dozen vets who spent time in Guam who were ātrickedā by male prostitutes. They were impaired by a lot of alcohol at the time, and several of them claim to have perpetrated violence on said prostitutes. I have no respect for those violent guys. They are fucking wrong, and should have either gracefully turned down said advances when the D was revealed, or been happy they were getting to have a new experience. The violence reverberates in my head. One guy claimed he beat his ālady-boyā into bleeding unconsciousness. Thatās far more fucked up than the prostitute misrepresenting his gender.
But yes, thereās definitely legal precedence in getting tricked. Iām not someone whoād be upset by āgetting trickedā that way, and I canāt empathize with people who get upset with it, but Iām willing to go the legalistic route at least and say if one is convincingly tricked and didnāt participate in the deception thereās definitely a legal grievance to be had.
But so many of the stories I hear is of transwomen being brutally beaten or even killed, and while I think itās best to be upfront with a prospective partner, I think itās just so fucking wrong for a partner to get so upset that they resort to violence when suddenly faced with a dick. Weāre all naked under our clothes after all, and genitals are genitals. Itās no big deal to me. Itās just weird that the accuser was willing to take every single thing the accused said at face value. We humans constantly lie to each other all the time. Itās the human condition. I donāt see why she should reasonably expect to be told the truth when sheās willing to believe anything from the beginning.
Another story, my childhood friend the psychopath (Iāve talked about him on the BBS before) decided to make some money through Craigslist one day. He trolled through and found several listings of men saying they wanted to be āfantasy rapedā. Men who said theyād be blindfolded and tied up at a certain time with their front door unlocked. My āfriendā the psychopath contacted them, set up appointments, and when the time came, waltzed into their houses and carried off their TVs and Computers and Jewelry. I think the men played a part, even if my āfriendā the psychopath did everything illegal and I am happy he was prosecuted for taking advantage of those dumb fucking sonsofbitches. They were stupid and my āfriendā was wrong and is a criminal for taking advantage of them in such a way. But the victims in this circumstance are still really stupid and shouldnāt have done what they did. I donāt think itās victim blaming to invite complete fucking internet strangers into your house to completley rape you sexually and instead you get raped financially.
That is such a fucked up mix of male entitlement, trans hatred, prostitutes as posessions, racism, toxic masculinity, alcoholic abuse and militaristic justification of violence that Iām kind of speechless.
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It is super fucked up. Itās wrong and unworthy behavior of humans. Itās not something to be lightly forgiven. Itās something to be held against someone until they change their ways.
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Itās one of the reasons that I keep bringing up menās movements every few months. It doesnāt all come from the same place, but Iād say a lot of the damage caused by men is fallout from things like toxic lack of self-acceptance projected onto others, abusive identity rituals, shaming, acceptance of violence as normal and so on. Men have to have these conversations and challenge this abuse for their own good, not just because theyāre damaging everyone around them.
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Iād say itās more important to consistently hunt down and prosecute men who commit such violence. Since an attitude or a mental state doesnāt give a person a black eye or a cut on the face, or a bruised brain while an action does. But yes itās absolutely important that men stop viewing themselves in terms of the violence they can dish out or withstand. Thatās really fucking stupid, and counter productive and doesnāt do any good for anyone.
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I think both are essential, but itās important to do whatever is possible to stop the kind of process that makes fairly peaceful boys into violent, abusive and self-destructive men. I think zero tolerance is counter productive and just perpetuates things by reinforcing the idea of violence as authority, but people are absolutely responsible for their behaviour and should face serious consequences for serious crimes. This is an interesting story about an extreme example of abuse and its results - this guy absolutely should have faced justice and I feel much more sorry for his victims than for him, but he was also an intelligent person who had potential and who was destroyed through torture and neglect. Other people were his victims, but he had to live with this internalised abuse throughout his life.
Weāre quite far from the original topic at this point though, and while there are some risks of ātrans panicā being excused due to this, the power dynamics are very different in this case.
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Iām inclined to agree that many of the men that are thus formed may be a lost cause; the priority must be preventing the propagation of this model of masculinity.
Drag kings do fine, and Carrie is using a specifically unnatural and exaggerated effect for humorous proposes. If youāre a shorter male, you may have a higher pitched voice. These arenāt really the weirdest things about the scenario.
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By that point, violence has already occurred. So no, it is not more important to clean up the mess that is their life, it is just as if not more important to keep that from occurring.
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I think people get written off far too early, although some of them will be unable to have normal relationships or may be a danger to others. I think there are a number of assumptions that are unhelpful, such as that men are inherently more aggressive and emotionally more able to cope with abuse (and also more deserving of it). While this is a fight against patriarchy, it isnāt a fight with men on one side and women on the other (and much less boys and girls). It isnāt a pissing contest to see who is the biggest victim. It is a cultural change that requires both men and women to change their attitudes and promote positive relationships where these are lacking. Iāll happily admit that a lot of the work needs to be done by men, which is why they should talk about it more and get to the root of the problem.
I personally benefit from a less patriarchal society by being closer to my family and being accepted as an equal parent by my wife and others. Iām not looked at as a creep, and other parents trust me around their kids. I see other men with children, and am represented in that community. It requires responsibility, but this social capital has significant benefits for me as a man - for example, relationships and social involvement are good for my mental health. Being sent to a place where people joke about you being raped because you committed a relatively minor crime will be bad for anyone, and will inevitably lead to further victims and worse crimes later on. (See Elizabeth Fryās comments for examples of what women are like under these conditions, and how they can change) Punish people who do wrong, but in a way that gives them every chance to return to society. Or bring back the death penalty, because itās more merciful.
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