My husband is attracted to non-op trans-women. He's a big Bailey Jay fan, and we've bought and used pegging toys that allow him to (at least partially) experience his fantasy. It's a part of his sexuality that I've always known about and never questioned, until we recently considered opening up our relationship to meet needs that the other person can't. (I'm bisexual, he likes women who have dicks.) We thought about creating OKC profiles but I wondered, would it be wrong for him to include his interest in his profile? Would stating, "I'm married to a cis-woman but interested in meeting and fucking trans-women" be awful? He wants to let (non-op) trans-women know that he's open and interested, while also letting cis-women know that he's not looking for that right now.

Is this type of specific searching a way of fetishizing trans-women? Is there something wrong with the desire to meet and sleep with a penis-having woman? I know you've condemned discriminatory language in online dating profiles before, but this is different in that it is explicitly inclusive.

Prioritizing Essential Need Intelligently, Sensitively

"Rule of thumb: someone could always be offended," said Bailey Jay, after I shared your email with her. "My opinion: this is harmless and super common on OKC."

Other rules of thumb: Simply stating that you happen to be interested in and that you're actively seeking a certain type of person—particularly when that statement is framed positively, not negatively (no need to rattle off a list of who/what you aren't seeking)—doesn't make you guilty of felony fetishization/objectification. It's how you treat people from your preferred romantic/erotic target groups that matters. If you treat them only as objects—if you treat them like human Fleshlights, there to be used and discarded, without any consideration for their feelings, desires, or agency—then, yeah, you're an asshole who's objectifying/fetishisizing people in a dehumanizing way.

Don't be an asshole.

If you take care not to treat people as objects only—people are objects also ("anything that is visible or tangible and is relatively stable in form")—then you're free to ignore the PC thought/dick/pussy police who insist any mention of traits and/or types amounts to felony objectification. On the other hand, PENIS, if you think you're being careful not to treat people as objects only but the people you've met with the traits you desire tell you that you made them feel objectified/fetishisized, well, then you're doing it wrong. Try harder and do better.

Last word to Bailey Jay: "Have fun and thanks for having sex with trans people!"