Fetishes and Autogynephilia

I've been thinking this since the early 2000s, when diversity training came in in all the UK financial services places I was working at the time. Suddenly any gay people were encouraged to come forward and present themselves to be paraded and feted as an example of how diverse they were, when most had been happily just getting on with their jobs. I remember thinking how weird it was that they were expected to prevent and talk about their sexuality and who they had relationships with outside of work, whereas, as a heterosexual woman, nobody asked of gave a fuck about mine. it always seemed dodgy to me, I mean, what did their sexuality have to do with how well they were doing their jobs or their professional life at all? I get with race and sex it's to prevent discrimination but, really, we should be arriving to make race, sex, sexuality completely irrelevant at your workplace (because they are), not selecting one of the above to be singles out and given great importance.

Suppose an unknown man stands in front of you wearing a dress, make up and fake breasts, like this man, for example.

How does your 'thought experiment' go from there?

You know he is a man dressed as a woman. What you don't know is why he is doing this. Because he believes he is a woman? For a bet or a stunt? Because he is doing it for sexual gratification?

You seem to be suggesting that we should wait for this man to declare what his motivation is before deciding how to react to him.

Well said irresistibleoverwhelm, the self-absorption required for a lot of this identity stuff is pretty astounding.

*complaining about kink-shaming, that should read!

A final comment, too, on the ideas of “identity” and “validation”. You will find plenty of LGB people who do not believe in sexuality as an “identity” at all, but merely behaviour - this is, in fact, historically how sexuality was viewed from the Greeks all the way to the end of the nineteenth century: as something you do, not something you are. This view alternated with identity theories well into the early 2000s, and many LGB people still feel their sexuality does not define their self or “identity”, but is merely one part of it or not even part of it at all.

This is a perfectly valid idea that is currently suppressed by the rise of a very dominating and limited idea of “identity” that is currently fashionable. But it would be well to recognise that not everyone subscribes to or believes in this fashion for “identity” and “validation” of identities. One important reason is that “Identity” as it’s currently socially constructed - largely amongst younger people - is often more limiting than freeing, and leaves out important parts of how we are socially with other people, as well as how free we are within our social constructions.

I find it depressing and imprisoning, and I’m not alone. The idea that “identities” need “validating” goes against all the things we should be encouraging young people to be - free to find themselves without labels, approval or the policing of those labels from other people. To be humanists - in the traditional sense; open, tolerant, generous, enlightened and outward-looking, not constantly turned inwards, obsessing about which labels fit and who’s offended by what use of someone else’s language.

This generation is setting itself up for great unhappiness and dissatisfaction through life, very inward-looking and me-me-me. The absolute prioritisation of stuff like pronouns and labels, when the global world is in disarray, is genuinely bemusing to see. If that obsessive energy was turned outwards to community building, party politics, welfare, global inequality and climate change, it could do wonders. Instead it is focusing on “validation”, pronouns, kink-shaming and Twitter activism, merrily ignoring the world’s pressing issues as Trump, Brexit, global inequality and climate destruction just sail on by.

Sexuality is not remotely the same as gender performance. Plus the performance of gender is all about the performance! The woman’s sexuality does not depend on whether you acknowledge it. Whereas - and we are speaking about AGP here - the aim of it is not at all to “pass” (a dodgy term in itself), but to be noticed as transgressive.

These are very false equivalences you’re making. A lot of them friend in this very dubious, and very recent, idea of “validation”, which conflates representation, acceptance and recognition. When you acknowledge the woman’s sexuality, you don’t “validate” it - it isn’t like a rubber stamp to say “you’re ok!” Her sexuality exists whether or not you approve of it, know, care or are totally oblivious.

Whereas the AGP fetish is all about the thrill of transgression and being seen to be performing something which otherwise doesn’t exist (without wearing the clothes, there is no AGP). But - crucially - your “validation” isn’t required either. All that is required is for you to see and notice - and maybe be shocked or titillated - but it definitely does not depend on “validation”. Remember we’re not talking about people who truly desire to be the other sex here: we’re talking about AGP, or crossdressing - the elements of which include a exaggerated portrayal of women and women’s clothing (typically wigs, lipstick, silky lingerie, stockings, heels - you don’t tend to find an AGP wanting to wear a grey fleece from the women’s section at Trespass).

Let's try a thought experiment here.

Suppose an unknown woman stands in front of you wearing ordinary clothes, say jeans and a t-shirt (but could as well be a dress as women have the luxury of having more expression than men generally)

You chat with her about the weather, about what she is doing that day etc etc.

Have you validated the fact that she is gay? Have you validated the fact that she is straight? You have done neither because you have no idea whether she is gay or straight.

Suppose then she happens to mention that she is gay, and you say (whilst thinking, 'this is a bit strange, strangers don't tend to announce their sexuality') 'O that's great, ah, um, really happy for you.'

Then you have validated her sexuality. But you have not done that before that point because it is information you did not have access to.

Same goes for AGP.

I have just read that. Well for starters it goes against a commonly expressed line from GC feminists - that there is nothing essential about gender, as it is very clear that criminal behaviour is related to the male sex and not the female sex. And that is a fundamental incoherence for this brand of feminism which says out of one corner of its mouth that men and women should not be sex-stereotyped and out of the other corner of its mouth says 'But of course men should always be viewed through a criminal lens'.

This has been very patiently explained to you before - you are conflating here two different issues

1. the feminist analysis of sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes as a tool for the oppression of females and therefore something we reject as not helpful, not useful and definitely not harmless. We don't accept that these stereotypes are innate and object to an ideology that posits they are.

However, we are all raised in a society that seeks to impose those stereotypes on us, with varying degrees of success. This is called male and female socialisation. So we reject gender as an innate quality of all humans, but we do not deny that stereotyping is happening.

2.) the structural analysis of male violence that feminists use to a) help survivors recover from the trauma of male violence and b) seek to change society to address , prevent and remedy male violence.

The latter is a class-based analysis that explicitly does not claim that all men are predators, it does not look at individuals, but instead it looks at the risk posed by men as a class and then pursues policies, laws and regulations that account for class-based risks rather than individual risks.

If the situation ever changes and male violence becomes a thing of the past, we can change the policies accordingly.

In the view of many feminists, point 2 is causally related to point 1, in that the stereotypes imposed on male people contribute to male violence.

But if you believe there is nothing essential about gender, (which is what a lot of feminists on these boards seem to believe), then referring to the pronoun or name of choice is no cost to you - because you know it is just about a name or pronoun and is no more meaningful than that.

You're not conferring on them any status because you know, and truly believe that this is impossible anyway - given that any man or woman can be anything at all.

So all you are doing is showing a measure of respect for a chosen name and a set of pronouns.

On the contrary, using a pronoun that mis-sexes the person comes at a cost to me. It implies I buy into this ideology and respect the right of others to dictate how I use the most basic words in English.

I read this quote by Theodore Dalrymple recently, which I think applies to coerced pronouning:

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of Communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of Communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”

In my experience of living in a communist country, this was true. I got into trouble as a teen because I didn't want to assent to what I had come to realise were obvious lies and I naively thought that truth was necessary for our country to be better.

(As a communist state, mind, I was a true believer. I just thought we'd do communism better without the lies and lip service. What can I say, I was a teenager and had no idea what was really going on in my country.)

And I have educated myself about queer theory, the doctrine of gender identity and and the lives of transgender people, their struggles, their needs and their beliefs about themselves.

I have concluded that implementing the doctrine of gender identity is not necessary to help transgender people live safe and happy lives. Because the doctrine of gender identity is evil in my view and implementing it will harm not just society and female people in particular, but also children and transgender people themselves.

I believe that demanding that I use preferred pronouns or state my own is asking me to co-operate with evil and for me to become, in a small way, evil myself by endorsing the ideology and contributing to the social pressure on non-believers to participate in the lie.

Imaginary "like" button being clicked away for OldCrones replies...

00:12 OldCrone
I really admire your patience and clarity.

My thought of reply was "someone doesn't understand the difference between stereotypes and physical facts"....

When you see a person wearing clothes that are atypical for their gender you do not know the reason why, as you are not a mind reader, right?

I don't care what clothes people wear.

Therefore, you are not in a position to say whether they are acting according to a fetish or not, are you?

No, which is why it is safest to keep all males out of female only spaces.

Given that you can not discern this, how can you say you are affirming or validating something that you don't know? That is illogical, you can only affirm or validate something you know to be the case.

No idea what you're getting at here. All I know is that some male person wants people to call him by a female name. If I do this and he is a fetishist he is being validated and I have been coerced into participating in his fetish. Why should I have to do this?

If, on the other hand, you are able to tell from behaviour that something illegal is happening then you should get the police involved.

Good luck with that.

As I said earlier, AGP, (if it exists) by its very definition - arousal at the thought of oneself as a woman - is probably one of the safest conditions out there for others! A person who has this isn't looking at anyone else as a sexual object because they are too busy looking at themselves!

Oh dear. How little you know. Most of these people are heterosexual and the ultimate validation for some of them is having sex with a lesbian. See also the experiences of transwidows.

Think of all the men and women out there spared the unwanted advances or worse, because an individual experiencing this doesn't even have them on the radar. I'm surprised some brands of feminism aren't actively encouraging this to be honest.

You really have no idea. Perhaps you should do some reading before engaging further.

Well, since men commit something like 90% of violent crimes and 99% of sexual crimes in the UK, violent criminal behaviour is obviously linked more with people of the male sex. I don't think any feminists have been saying otherwise, in fact those statistics are often quoted on here. What do you mean by 'nothing essential about gender'?

Suggestionsplease, across several threads, has repeatedly conflated "gender" as a social construct based on sex stereotypes, with supposed gender identity. Thus the sleight of hand. It's been pointed out repeatedly that women on FWR accept the concept of gender. That is what we are "critical" of after all.

Of course, in these tests, most researchers point out that this is a negative thing, and this bias is what is at work behind racism and other negative stereotyping processes of different groups. The author of the Fair Play for Women article instead feels that such an implicit association for criminality and men is a positive, protective thing. Hmmmmm....

You need to read The Gift of Fear. Always trust your instincts, don't let your guard down because of social niceties. You seem very sheltered.

Well for starters it goes against a commonly expressed line from GC feminists - that there is nothing essential about gender, as it is very clear that criminal behaviour is related to the male sex and not the female sex.

Well, since men commit something like 90% of violent crimes and 99% of sexual crimes in the UK, violent criminal behaviour is obviously linked more with people of the male sex. I don't think any feminists have been saying otherwise, in fact those statistics are often quoted on here. What do you mean by 'nothing essential about gender'?

And that is a fundamental incoherence for this brand of feminism which says out of one corner of its mouth that men and women should not be sex-stereotyped and out of the other corner of its mouth says 'But of course men should always be viewed through a criminal lens'.

There is nothing incoherent about quoting statistics about male violence but saying that sex stereotyping about how men and women should behave is wrong. I don't understand what you're trying to say with this comment. These are two completely different things.

Of course, in these tests, most researchers point out that this is a negative thing, and this bias is what is at work behind racism and other negative stereotyping processes of different groups. The author of the Fair Play for Women article instead feels that such an implicit association for criminality and men is a positive, protective thing.

The statistics tell us that men are much more likely to commit crime than women are. This is not 'bias', this is fact. Do you really think that more men are convicted of violent and sexual crimes than women are because of some sort of 'bias'? That women are committing just as many of these acts but they are not caught or are acquitted by the courts?

And of course one of the upshots of this is that your expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy - you expect people to be bad, you treat them like they will be bad - sure enough they will act badly. There's a huge amount of research in this area.

This sounds very much like blaming women for the violent acts of men. That men only commit crimes because women were mean to them. As if men are just puppets with no self-determination or self control and all their actions are because of an uncontrollable reaction to the way women treat them. Is that really what you mean?

Sorry, just noticed the post above mine. What an absolute load of confused nonesense.
We've got misrepresentations of feminism, outright lies about what feminism means, and a women are responsible for mens behaviour, thrown in for good measure.

When you see a person wearing clothes that are atypical for their gender you do not know the reason why, as you are not a mind reader, right?

Therefore, you are not in a position to say whether they are acting according to a fetish or not, are you?

Given that you can not discern this, how can you say you are affirming or validating something that you don't know? That is illogical, you can only affirm or validate something you know to be the case.

If, on the other hand, you are able to tell from behaviour that something illegal is happening then you should get the police involved.

As I said earlier, AGP, (if it exists) by its very definition - arousal at the thought of oneself as a woman - is probably one of the safest conditions out there for others! A person who has this isn't looking at anyone else as a sexual object because they are too busy looking at themselves! Think of all the men and women out there spared the unwanted advances or worse, because an individual experiencing this doesn't even have them on the radar. I'm surprised some brands of feminism aren't actively encouraging this to be honest.

I think generally the fetish seems to include controlling and abuseive behaviour, which is what people object to rather than the fetish in itself? Also the coersive nature of needing others to partake in your sexual practive against their will?

[quote OldCrone]But if you believe there is nothing essential about gender, (which is what a lot of feminists on these boards seem to believe), then referring to the pronoun or name of choice is no cost to you - because you know it is just about a name or pronoun and is no more meaningful than that.

Read this:
fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/[/quote]
I have just read that. Well for starters it goes against a commonly expressed line from GC feminists - that there is nothing essential about gender, as it is very clear that criminal behaviour is related to the male sex and not the female sex. And that is a fundamental incoherence for this brand of feminism which says out of one corner of its mouth that men and women should not be sex-stereotyped and out of the other corner of its mouth says 'But of course men should always be viewed through a criminal lens'.

It appears to be arguing that it is right for pronoun use to jar with us when it follows atypical patterns, and that this should signal a danger, that male pronouns pair more naturally with criminality and we should trust our intuition so that we can be on high alert to protect ourselves from danger - it's an instinctive response which is there for a reason and it keeps us safe.

It very much reminded me of the Harvard Implicit Association Tests - which measure bias/ prejudice toward / against ethnic group (amongst other things). You do a speed reaction test that measures how quickly you associate positive or negative words with pictures of faces of different ethnicities. Guess what, Caucasian people pair positive words more quickly with white faces than they do with black faces, and pair negative words more quickly with black faces than they do with white faces. People implicitly link along the bias they have.

implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/user/agg/blindspot/indexrk.htm

Of course, in these tests, most researchers point out that this is a negative thing, and this bias is what is at work behind racism and other negative stereotyping processes of different groups. The author of the Fair Play for Women article instead feels that such an implicit association for criminality and men is a positive, protective thing. Hmmmmm....

And of course one of the upshots of this is that your expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy - you expect people to be bad, you treat them like they will be bad - sure enough they will act badly. There's a huge amount of research in this area.

I suspect their next move will be to normalise flashing. I've been flashed and actually didn't care. But I fully support my friends who were horrified by their experiences of seeing a penis they didn't ask to see. I strongly feel flashing must remain illegal. These behaviours are all a slippery slope to sexual assault imo. Am I allowed to say these things here?

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask Stonewall what their plan is in this brave new world for cross dressers where it is a fetish. Plenty of men are open about it being a turn on for them. My question would be, are women expected to be fine if the lady penis is erect? What if the penis owner touches the penis? Would Stonewall claim that no men are aroused by wearing female clothes? Surely this is an indefensible position.

Sorry that post went wrong.

The transwidows site is transwidows.org.

Some examples:

www.womenarehuman.com/man-murdered-fiancee-who-was-unhappy-with-his-cross-dressing-impulses-police-say/

www.womenarehuman.com/prescription-delivery-driver-with-cross-dressing-fetish-attempts-to-rape-female-cancer-patient-dennis-reed/

Transwidows who typically have had husbands who began by crossdressing:

www.womenarehuman.com/crossdresser-with-baby-fetish-rapes-sexually-tortures-girl-david-challenor/

www.womenarehuman.com/dad-killed-child-13-who-found-photos-of-dad-in-womens-lingerie-eating-feces-from-diaper/
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9796711/Colorado-dad-guilty-killing-son-Dylan-Redwine-photos-eating-feces.html

www.womenarehuman.com/trans-comic-strip-creates-diaperfur-kink-based-on-real-babies-frames-backlash-as-transphobia/

TW and violent offenders in prison:
fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-prisoners/

I consider that these examples of people trying to manipulate situations are far more harmful than a random person hoping that you'll treat them as the gender they identify with.

Look at the thread title again. This is not a thread about people 'identifying as a gender', this is a thread about fetishistic crossdressing in males and how it can escalate. It's about how the current 'trans' movement encourages such people and how the general public become unwitting participants in their fetish by 'being kind'.

And your second paragraph is just pure hyperbole. You're not validating anyone's sexual fetish by being in the same room with someone who is wearing atypical clothes for their sex.

In the case of one of the males that this thread is discussing, you are validating them if you do any of the things I mentioned in an earlier post, such as using their chosen female name.

This is not about the unfortunate people who are distressed about the sex they are. This is about crossdressing fetishism in males.

What a fatuous comparison. If I’m test-driving a car and imagining it’s going to transform my life, that’s only happening in my head. Even if I tell other people this and want them to play along, they aren’t obliged to, and nor will I get a free car if I tell the dealership that I’ll commit suicide if they don’t hand it over without me paying. And none of that infringes on other people’s sexual boundaries.

You’re missing out that being an unwilling accessory in “validating” someone’s sexual fetish is ultimately being made to have or provide a sexual role without one’s consent. And this is demanded not just of adults, but of children too - everyone who is forced to go along with it. If I go about imagining I’m James Bond or are living in that lovely big house around the corner, not only is it not sexual, but I’m not requiring everyone else around me to participate regardless of whether they are knowing, unknowing, old enough to consent to sexual activity, whatever.

You're misinterpreting my comparison in the first paragraph. I am saying that, in all walks of live, in myriad possible ways, others try to convince us of things we could be dubious about, and we are often complicit in these fantasies.

Prospective partners could lovebomb us and manipulate us into unhealthy relationships, car / houses / shares sales people might try to persuade us for the sale that might be a bad personal financial decision, children could hide / lie to us about criminal activity they are involved in etc etc. There is no end to the potential for our complicity in distortions and fantasies.

What I'm saying is - I consider that these examples of people trying to manipulate situations are far more harmful than a random person hoping that you'll treat them as the gender they identify with.

And your second paragraph is just pure hyperbole. You're not validating anyone's sexual fetish by being in the same room with someone who is wearing atypical clothes for their sex. Good grief. If you stand next to anyone and encourage them as they masturbate publicly I suggest you don't do that but call the police instead, and then you can be happy that you have not affirmed or validated inappropriate behaviour.