Autogynephilia
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Autogynephilia (pronounced /ˌɔːtoʊˌɡaɪnəˈfɪliə/) (from Greek αὐτό (self), γῦνή (woman) and φῖλία (love) — "love of oneself as a woman") is the term coined in 1989 by Ray Blanchard to refer to "a man's paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman."[1] It has been theorized to motivate erotic cross-dressing (transvestism) in biological males and to motivate gender dysphoria in some biological males. Autogynephilia has also been suggested to pertain to romantic love as well as to sexual arousal patterns.[2]
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[edit] Sexual fantasies
Blanchard (2005) provides case examples to illustrate the sexual fantasies that suggested the existance of autogynephilia:[3]
Philip was a 38-year-old professional man referred to the author's clinic for assessment....Philip began masturabing at puberty, which occurred at age 12 or 13. The earliest sexual fantasy he could recall was that of having a woman's body. When he masturbated, he would imagine that he was a nude woman lying alone in her bed. His mental imagery would focus on his breasts, his vagina, the softness of his skin, and so on—all the characteristic features of the female physique. This remained his favorite sexual fantasy throughout his life.
According to Blanchard, "An autogynephile does not necessarily become sexually aroused every time he pictures himself as female or engages in feminine behavior, any more than a heterosexual man automatically gets an erections whenever he sees an attractive woman. Thus, the concept of autogynephilia...refers to a potential for sexual excitation"[4] [emphasis in original].
Blanchard classified four subtypes of autogynephilic sexual fantasies:[5]
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- Transvestic autogynephilia: arousal to the act or fantasy of wearing women's clothing
- Behavioral autogynephilia: arousal to the act or fantasy of doing something regarded as feminine
- Physiologic autogynephilia: arousal to fantasies of female-specific body functions
- Anatomic autogynephilia: arousal to the fantasy of having a woman's body, or parts of one.
He noted that "All four types of autogynephilia tend to occur in combination with other types rather than alone."[4] Blanchard (2005) also provides other examples of autogynephiles' narratives to illustrate the range of those fantasies in their own words:[3]
I have been in a steady relationship with a lady some eight years older than me....We regularly have sex and I really enjoy getting her excited and giving her orgasms. She gets to a point where she wants me inside her, and I do this, but I usually have to imagine I am the women to have an orgasm myself. For some reason she likes to have her legs closed, so I am usually the one with my legs spread, which reinforced my fantasy of being the one who is penetrated. I have not told her what I fantasize about during sex, and have not told her that I have started hormones. (Narrative #54)
An early experience I can still vividly remember of becoming aroused at the thought of becoming female was when I was approximately 9 or 10 years old. I was overweight and I had begun to develop breasts, solely from my weight. I would soap my breasts in the shower and imagine I was really a woman with a real woman's breasts, and I would become extremely aroused....It was until I actually started therapy that I began appearing in public dressed as a female. In the early days I would become aroused whenever anyone, a sales clerk, a casual stranger, would address me as "Ma'am" or perform come courtesy such as holding a door for me. This arousal led to a heightened fear of discovery, i.e., that my erection would give me away. (Narrative #13)
When having sex with women, biological males with autogynephilia (regardless of whether they plan actually to undergo transition) sometimes imagine themselves as women sexually interacting as lesbians.[6] Blanchard notes that biological males with autogynephilia will also have sex with males: "The effective erotic stimulus in these interactions, however, is not the male physique of the partner, as it is in true homosexual attraction, but rather the thought of being a woman, which is symbolized in the fantasy of being penetrated by a man. For these persons, the male sexual partner serves...to intensify the fantasy of being a woman."[1] Blanchard (2005) provides an individual's narrative illustrating the phenomenon:[3]
I have also had sexual enounters with eight men....I found I enjoyed the physical aspects of this type of sex and felt I was confirming my womanhood by being a passive partner. All these encounters occurred while I was [cross-]dressed and were all one night stands. I have never been interested in sex with a man when I was presenting as a man myself. (Narrative #54)
There also exist biological males who report being sexually aroused by the image or idea of having some but not all female anatomy, such as having female breasts but retaining their male genitalia; Blanchard refered to this phenomenon as partial autogynephilia.[7][8]
[edit] Origins
Blanchard has recounted how he came to recognize the phenomenon of autogynephilia and to coin the term describing it.[3] Although Blanchard provided autogynephilia with a precise definition, previous authors, using the terminology available in their day, have described the same phenomenon: According to Harry Benjamin, some male-to-female transsexuals imagine themselves as women being penetrated by male sexual partners,[9] an observation that had also been noted by Lukianowicz (1959).[10]
Fenichel (1930) observed in some of his patients that "Love for the subject's own self—phantasies that the masculine element in his nature can have intercourse with the feminine (i.e., with himself) are not uncommon."[11](p. 214)
Havelock Ellis (1935) variously used the term sexo-aethetic inversion and Eonism to refer to cross-gender behavior and feelings, writing that "The Eonist is embodying, in an extreme degree, the aesthetic attribute of imitation of, and identification with, the admired object. It is normal for a man to identify himself with the woman he loves. The Eonist carries that identification too far" (p. 244).[12]
Magnus Hirschfeld (1948) used the term automonosexuals, indicating that "We are almost tempted to believe that we are here faced with a splitting of the personality in the sense that the masculine component in the psyche of these men is sexually stimulated by the feminine component that that they feel attracted not by the women outside them, but by the woman inside them" (p. 167).[13]
Kurt Freund (1982) coined the term cross-gender fetishism to refer to "the subject's fantasizing, during fetishistic activity, that she or he belong to the opposite sex...the fetish, in such cases always an object characteristic of the opposite sex, is used to induce or enhance cross-gender identity" (p. 50).[14]
[edit] Adoption of notion of autogynephilia
The concept began receiving attention outside of sexology when sexologist Dr. Anne Lawrence, who self-identifies as an autogynephile, published a series of web articles about the concept in the late 1990s.[15] In 2003, J. Michael Bailey published a popular science book The Man Who Would Be Queen, which contained a section on autogynephilia and Blanchard's taxonomy of male-to-female transsexualism.
Some transwomen have been extremely critical of the theory, especially after the publication of The Man Who Would Be Queen; however, some of the had previously either explicitly endorsed Blanchard's theory or provided evidence from their own histories that was quite consistent with the theory. For example, the primary attacker of Bailey, Anjelica Kieltyka, filed formal charges against him at Northwestern's IRB. Bailey wrote that Kieltyka (under the pseudonym "Cher") practiced fetishistic cross-dressing as a man, escalating to her wearing fake vaginas while simulating intercourse with a wooden "robot" while filming himself (this occurred prior to Kieltyka's transition from man to woman). Kieltyka has never denied this behavior, although she has disagreed that it represents autogynephilia.
Another critic of the theory, Andrea James, had initially endorsed Blanchard's work and considered herself autogynephlic: "I found many of his observations to be quite valid, even brilliant, especially in distinguishing early- and late-transitioning TS patterns of thought and behavior....I readily admit to my own autogynephilia."[16]
Another transwoman, Deirdre McCloskey, whose opposition to Bailey's book led her to file several ethical charges against him, had earlier explicitly written about her sexual arousal (as a male) to the idea of becoming a woman:
He always read disproportionately about gender crossers, or about crossdressers who actually lived as women. When in 1994 he ran across 'A Life in High Heels,' an autobiography by Holly Woodlawn, one of Andy Warhol's group, the parts he read and reread and was sexually aroused by were about Woodlawn's living successfully for months at a time as a woman, not her campiness when presenting as a gay genetic man in a dress....Donald's preoccupation with gender crossing showed up in an ugly fact about the pornographic magazines he used. There are two kinds of crossdressing magazines, those that portray the men in dresses with private parts showing and those that portray them hidden. He could never get aroused by the ones with private parts showing. His fantasy was of complete transformation, not a peek-a-boo, leering masculinity. He wanted what he wanted.[17]
Study of autogynephilia is ongoing; it is not either accepted or rejected by a majority of psychologists.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Blanchard, R. (1989). The concept of autogynephilia and the typology of male gender dysphoria. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177, 616-623.
- ^ Lawrence, A. A. (2007). Becoming what we love: Autogynephilic transsexualism conceptualized as an expression of romantic love. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 50, 506–520.
- ^ a b c d Blanchard, R. (2005). Early history of the concept of autogynephilia. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 34, 439–446.
- ^ a b Blanchard, R. (1991). Clinical observations and systematic studies of autogynephilia. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 17, 235-251.
- ^ Blanchard, R. (1993). Varieties of autogynephilia and their relationship to gender dysphoria. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 22, 241–251.
- ^ Newman, L. E., & Stoller, R. J. (1974). Nontranssexual men who seek sex reassignment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 131, 437–441.
- ^ Blanchard, R. (1993). The she-male phenomenon and the concept of partial autogynephilia. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 19, 69–307.
- ^ Blanchard, R. (1993). Partial versus complete autogynephilia and gender dysphoria. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 19, 301–307.
- ^ Benjamin, H. (1966). The transsexual phenomenon. New York: Julian.
- ^ Lukianowicz, N. (1959). Survey of various aspects of transvestism in the light of our present knowledge. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 128, 36–64.
- ^ Fenichel, O. (1930). The psychology of transvestism. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 11, 211-227.
- ^ Ellis, H. (1935). Psychology of sex: A manual for students. New York: Emerson.
- ^ Hirschfeld, M. (1948). Sexual anomalies. New York: Emerson.
- ^ Freund, K., Steiner, B. W., & Chan, S. (1982). Two types of cross-gender identity. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 11, 49-63.
- ^ Lawrence AA (1998). "Men Trapped in Men's Bodies:"An Introduction to the Concept of Autogynephilia. originally published at annelwrence.com, October 1998. Retrieved August 21, 2006)
- ^ Dreger, A. D. (2008). The controversy surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A case history of the politics of science, identity, and sex in the Internet age. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37, 366-421.
- ^ McCloskey, Deirdre. (1999). Crossing: A Memoir. University of Chicago Press.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Proponents
- Anderson L (2003). The Autogynephilia Resource
- Fenton JF (2004). "The Lemonade Stand of Desire", from TGForum.com A sociological analysis of the debates around autogynephilia
- Lawrence AA (2000). Sexuality and Transsexuality: A New Introduction to Autogynephilia, from Transsexual Women's Resources
[edit] Critics
- Bland J (2003). The 'Science' Behind Autogynephilia
- Conway L (2004). An investigation into the publication of J. Michael Bailey's The Man Who Would Be Queen
- James AJ (2004). "Autogynephilia": A disputed diagnosis, from Transsexual Road Map
- Orens B (2004). Autogynephilia: A Mistaken Model
- Wilson KK (2000). Autogynephilia: New Medical Thinking or Old Stereotype? from GIDreform.org
- Wyndzen MH (2004). Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Autogynephilia (But Were Afraid You Had To Ask), from Psychology of Gender Identity & Transgenderism
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