This is nsfw and culture-war-adjacent, so please skip if that's not your thing.
I've recently come across the term 'autogynephilia', meaning roughly sexual arousal because of feeling and appearing female or feminine. I believe this was originally intended to refer to men with crossdressing kinks, but seems to be usually used these days in reference to trans women, implying that they are not really women but men who fetishize femininity.
I'm a cisgender woman and that argument seems wrong to me. In popular culture, and confirmed by many of my cis female friends, many cis women have something very similar to autogynephilia. Wearing lingerie that exaggerates feminine features like your hips is very common and many women seem to find it sexually exciting; similarly, some people like to see themselves in mirrors etc. 'Feeling like a woman' links to many arousing emotions/states of mind, such as feeling desirable, feeling weak or submissive, and feeling that you’re taken care of.
Is there something I’m missing here? If any amab people experience autogynephilia, does it seem like what I’m describing above?
There is a construction of female sexuality which women, as well as men, are conditioned by socially. Since men (until recently) have not been presented as sexual objects of desire in imagery by the mass advertising media, movies and the other elements, what both "the male gaze" and any women consuming such media imbibe is a particular notion of femininity.
We can see this in its most exaggerated form in drag, but if we look into what is considered 'sexy' or 'appealing' then we have to question how standards of what is considered erotic or arousing arose. There are arguments around high heels, even dragging in 'evolutionary scientists' to back up that Science Has Spoken on this:
But why fishnets? Why thigh-garters? Why a particular face-full of makeup? Once you look into it, there's less nature and a whole lot of artifice. And, as I said, this is in the cultural water. Growing up, both boys and girls learn that this is what is sexy, this is what sexiness is about. For men, attaining an object who ticks all the boxes of what is culturally and socially considered highly desirable and sexy, dressed appropriately for the evocation of lust, is the goal. For women, being or becoming that object is the goal. A woman knows she is hot or sexy when the stimulus evokes the response of desire in herself, and she is taught to desire this model of femininity by existing in the world where this is the model of sexual feminine. So for some women, maybe a lot of women, of course living up to the ideal will evoke arousal, since all our responses are being conditioned to find "this is what is arousing, this is what should arouse you" (now is where "cis hetero-normativity" as a useful phrase comes in).
Okay, that's women. What about men? Men don't have a model of "hot sexy arousing" unless it's "be the type of guy who's tall with big muscles who is attractive to women". But they do have a model of what is arousing, and is expected and intended to evoke arousal in them, when it comes to the Feminine Image - the pouting blonde with big boobs and tiny waist in corset, push-up bra, thigh-garters, stockings and heels, wearing makeup, long nails, jewellery, perfume, and so on.
Here's where the theorising comes in. If you're a man who is not sure about being able to attain the masculine model of 'hot sexy', then it's hard to feel desirable. But the same way that women can feel desirable, by performing femininity by dressing up in lingerie etc. and evoking the sensual reaction of desire in themselves, a man who has accepted that this is the social model of what is 'hot sexy' can, by performing femininity himself, evoke that same feeling of desirability.
And if he successfully evokes the sensual reaction of desire *in himself* by makeup, lingerie, heels, skirts, dresses, and so on - then it's reinforcement. He feels good, he feels desirable, he feels like he is succeeding in that social role, by 'becoming' a woman. Where we move on from cross-dressing to trans autogynephilia is where becoming a woman and arousal are inextricably intertwined, so the man who feels he may not be a sexually successful man as a man, can feel like he will be sexually successful as a woman, and should be/is a woman, in reality. And how (s)he succeeds in being a woman is measured by the sexual arousal and desire the performance of femininity evokes in him/her: if (s)he doesn't find her/himself aroused by dressing up and putting on makeup and taking a new, feminine, name, then that is failure.
(By "sexually successful" I don't mean "attracts a lot of partners, has a lot of sex", I mean "successfully fulfils the role of being a sexually desirable object").
But all this is just pulled out of thin air, so don't take it any more seriously than the usual kind of hypothesis with no data to back it up.
The question I always have about this hypothesis is: if this is the full story, then why do a lot of people (e.g. many people with fetishes) have an idea of sexiness that is seemingly completely disconnected from what society says it should be?
I think you have to go to Freud for that one. I'm definitely not saying it's the full story or anything approaching it but with all the talk of trans rights and "gender is a social construct", there's a part we haven't approached about sexuality being a social construct in part as well.
I think maybe because people don't want the argument about "if you can choose to construct your sexuality in a non-conventional way, you can choose to construct it in a conventional way", hence the 'born this way' argument and the 'born in the wrong body' argument in early trans activism (it's my understanding this has been dropped now).
But there do seem to be some trans people for whom the appurtenances of current socially approved femininity* are what matters: long hair, facial makeup, jewellery, skirts, a very 'pink and fluffy girly' style. This doesn't seem to have so much to do with 'passing' (you can 'pass' by wearing a much more toned down style) but with a model of 'sexually attractive hot femaleness' in mind, and I do think that is at least in part mediated by what all of us, male or female, have been raised on in the media and around us as what constitutes the kind of stimulus to evoke (male) sexual desire and arousal.
So for *some* trans women, I suggest that there *is* an element of "to be a woman, to pass successfully, is to be an erotically attractive woman; this is expressed by dressing and behaving in such and such a manner; if I dress and behave like that, *and* evoke the erotic response in myself, I have succeeded in presenting myself as a woman/the woman I am".
*Whatever about high heels and red lipstick as mimicking biological markers of oestrus as in female apes, why are stockings and garters and lingerie considered sexy, why the whole Victoria's Secret kind of branding? It's a form of fashion that has cultural overtones, and in the past would have been different, and in the future may be different as well.
> Cis people have a shockingly high amount of cross-sex-identifying sexual fantasies, to the degree that I wouldn’t consider it to be a particularly significant differentiator between cis and trans people. The best differentiator between trans and cis people is looking what they don’t like; trans people are much more opposed to non-gender-affirming fantasies than cis people are.
The argument is not "these men fantasize about being female and feel aroused by these fantasies, which women don't do, so they are not really women". The argument, as I understand it, is "their yearning of being seen as women, by themselves and others, starts out as a sexual fantasy and is then reconceptualized as actually being women, the newly invented concept of gender serving to explain why it's possible".
Personally I mostly agree with you, but: there's a norm currently that it's somewhere between crass and literal rape to involve people actively in your kink without their fully informed consent, even when it doesn't involve something people normally consider as sexually charged, say by having them call you by feminine pronouns and titles when you are "actually" [1] male.
It also gets brought up to delegitimize things like bathroom access and similar complications, by arguing that even if you respect people's right to have sexual interests society shouldn't go out of its way to actually *satisfy* such interests. And to delegitimize GAC given that doctors don't offer their services for body mod paraphilias generally.
Further, there's just a horns effect around men who are constantly horny in public which then gets transferred to trans women.
Yeah, I really think this isn't generating the same set of images and associations in your mind as in that of the (stereo)typical AGP believer. They pretty much seem to picture either all or all "population 2" (later-transitioning, mostly lesbian) trans women as walking around in a pseudo-masturbatory haze 24/7 basically getting off every time they pass a reflective surface or hear their own name.
Ah, I thought you were more in a "what is going on in people's head that they think this a good argument?" space. If you're not, well, the middle points are the sticking ones. If the primary motivator to transition is AGP rather than dysphoria, it's arguably harder to square GAC with mainstream medical ethics, and it's also harder to argue in favor of everyday accommodations or even against people who stubbornly misgender ("if you find someone who wants to call you a woman more power to you but I don't"). It basically takes away one of the main arguments for allowing social or medical transition at all, because sexual frustration is not a class of suffering that is socially afforded sympathy.
This is nsfw and culture-war-adjacent, so please skip if that's not your thing.
I've recently come across the term 'autogynephilia', meaning roughly sexual arousal because of feeling and appearing female or feminine. I believe this was originally intended to refer to men with crossdressing kinks, but seems to be usually used these days in reference to trans women, implying that they are not really women but men who fetishize femininity.
I'm a cisgender woman and that argument seems wrong to me. In popular culture, and confirmed by many of my cis female friends, many cis women have something very similar to autogynephilia. Wearing lingerie that exaggerates feminine features like your hips is very common and many women seem to find it sexually exciting; similarly, some people like to see themselves in mirrors etc. 'Feeling like a woman' links to many arousing emotions/states of mind, such as feeling desirable, feeling weak or submissive, and feeling that you’re taken care of.
Is there something I’m missing here? If any amab people experience autogynephilia, does it seem like what I’m describing above?
I agree - see https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/02/10/autogenderphilia-is-common-and-not-especially-related-to-transgender/
My standard answer for these sorts of questions is ‘Sex ,even traditional procreative sex, is weird and we will never understand it.
I feel like Simone de Beauvoir probably covered this in "The Second Sex" but since it has been decades since I read it, don't quote me on that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Sex
There is a construction of female sexuality which women, as well as men, are conditioned by socially. Since men (until recently) have not been presented as sexual objects of desire in imagery by the mass advertising media, movies and the other elements, what both "the male gaze" and any women consuming such media imbibe is a particular notion of femininity.
We can see this in its most exaggerated form in drag, but if we look into what is considered 'sexy' or 'appealing' then we have to question how standards of what is considered erotic or arousing arose. There are arguments around high heels, even dragging in 'evolutionary scientists' to back up that Science Has Spoken on this:
https://www.glamour.com/story/study-high-heels-sexy
But why fishnets? Why thigh-garters? Why a particular face-full of makeup? Once you look into it, there's less nature and a whole lot of artifice. And, as I said, this is in the cultural water. Growing up, both boys and girls learn that this is what is sexy, this is what sexiness is about. For men, attaining an object who ticks all the boxes of what is culturally and socially considered highly desirable and sexy, dressed appropriately for the evocation of lust, is the goal. For women, being or becoming that object is the goal. A woman knows she is hot or sexy when the stimulus evokes the response of desire in herself, and she is taught to desire this model of femininity by existing in the world where this is the model of sexual feminine. So for some women, maybe a lot of women, of course living up to the ideal will evoke arousal, since all our responses are being conditioned to find "this is what is arousing, this is what should arouse you" (now is where "cis hetero-normativity" as a useful phrase comes in).
Okay, that's women. What about men? Men don't have a model of "hot sexy arousing" unless it's "be the type of guy who's tall with big muscles who is attractive to women". But they do have a model of what is arousing, and is expected and intended to evoke arousal in them, when it comes to the Feminine Image - the pouting blonde with big boobs and tiny waist in corset, push-up bra, thigh-garters, stockings and heels, wearing makeup, long nails, jewellery, perfume, and so on.
Here's where the theorising comes in. If you're a man who is not sure about being able to attain the masculine model of 'hot sexy', then it's hard to feel desirable. But the same way that women can feel desirable, by performing femininity by dressing up in lingerie etc. and evoking the sensual reaction of desire in themselves, a man who has accepted that this is the social model of what is 'hot sexy' can, by performing femininity himself, evoke that same feeling of desirability.
And if he successfully evokes the sensual reaction of desire *in himself* by makeup, lingerie, heels, skirts, dresses, and so on - then it's reinforcement. He feels good, he feels desirable, he feels like he is succeeding in that social role, by 'becoming' a woman. Where we move on from cross-dressing to trans autogynephilia is where becoming a woman and arousal are inextricably intertwined, so the man who feels he may not be a sexually successful man as a man, can feel like he will be sexually successful as a woman, and should be/is a woman, in reality. And how (s)he succeeds in being a woman is measured by the sexual arousal and desire the performance of femininity evokes in him/her: if (s)he doesn't find her/himself aroused by dressing up and putting on makeup and taking a new, feminine, name, then that is failure.
(By "sexually successful" I don't mean "attracts a lot of partners, has a lot of sex", I mean "successfully fulfils the role of being a sexually desirable object").
But all this is just pulled out of thin air, so don't take it any more seriously than the usual kind of hypothesis with no data to back it up.
The question I always have about this hypothesis is: if this is the full story, then why do a lot of people (e.g. many people with fetishes) have an idea of sexiness that is seemingly completely disconnected from what society says it should be?
I think you have to go to Freud for that one. I'm definitely not saying it's the full story or anything approaching it but with all the talk of trans rights and "gender is a social construct", there's a part we haven't approached about sexuality being a social construct in part as well.
I think maybe because people don't want the argument about "if you can choose to construct your sexuality in a non-conventional way, you can choose to construct it in a conventional way", hence the 'born this way' argument and the 'born in the wrong body' argument in early trans activism (it's my understanding this has been dropped now).
But there do seem to be some trans people for whom the appurtenances of current socially approved femininity* are what matters: long hair, facial makeup, jewellery, skirts, a very 'pink and fluffy girly' style. This doesn't seem to have so much to do with 'passing' (you can 'pass' by wearing a much more toned down style) but with a model of 'sexually attractive hot femaleness' in mind, and I do think that is at least in part mediated by what all of us, male or female, have been raised on in the media and around us as what constitutes the kind of stimulus to evoke (male) sexual desire and arousal.
So for *some* trans women, I suggest that there *is* an element of "to be a woman, to pass successfully, is to be an erotically attractive woman; this is expressed by dressing and behaving in such and such a manner; if I dress and behave like that, *and* evoke the erotic response in myself, I have succeeded in presenting myself as a woman/the woman I am".
*Whatever about high heels and red lipstick as mimicking biological markers of oestrus as in female apes, why are stockings and garters and lingerie considered sexy, why the whole Victoria's Secret kind of branding? It's a form of fashion that has cultural overtones, and in the past would have been different, and in the future may be different as well.
Aella did a huge survey and found that autogynephilia is very common, regardless of gender expression: https://aella.substack.com/p/everyone-has-autogynephilia
A relevant quote:
> Cis people have a shockingly high amount of cross-sex-identifying sexual fantasies, to the degree that I wouldn’t consider it to be a particularly significant differentiator between cis and trans people. The best differentiator between trans and cis people is looking what they don’t like; trans people are much more opposed to non-gender-affirming fantasies than cis people are.
The argument is not "these men fantasize about being female and feel aroused by these fantasies, which women don't do, so they are not really women". The argument, as I understand it, is "their yearning of being seen as women, by themselves and others, starts out as a sexual fantasy and is then reconceptualized as actually being women, the newly invented concept of gender serving to explain why it's possible".
Personally I mostly agree with you, but: there's a norm currently that it's somewhere between crass and literal rape to involve people actively in your kink without their fully informed consent, even when it doesn't involve something people normally consider as sexually charged, say by having them call you by feminine pronouns and titles when you are "actually" [1] male.
It also gets brought up to delegitimize things like bathroom access and similar complications, by arguing that even if you respect people's right to have sexual interests society shouldn't go out of its way to actually *satisfy* such interests. And to delegitimize GAC given that doctors don't offer their services for body mod paraphilias generally.
Further, there's just a horns effect around men who are constantly horny in public which then gets transferred to trans women.
---
[1] These are scare quotes, not emphasis quotes.
Yeah, I really think this isn't generating the same set of images and associations in your mind as in that of the (stereo)typical AGP believer. They pretty much seem to picture either all or all "population 2" (later-transitioning, mostly lesbian) trans women as walking around in a pseudo-masturbatory haze 24/7 basically getting off every time they pass a reflective surface or hear their own name.
Ah, I thought you were more in a "what is going on in people's head that they think this a good argument?" space. If you're not, well, the middle points are the sticking ones. If the primary motivator to transition is AGP rather than dysphoria, it's arguably harder to square GAC with mainstream medical ethics, and it's also harder to argue in favor of everyday accommodations or even against people who stubbornly misgender ("if you find someone who wants to call you a woman more power to you but I don't"). It basically takes away one of the main arguments for allowing social or medical transition at all, because sexual frustration is not a class of suffering that is socially afforded sympathy.