Twitter - AGP Awerness Day

[MrsWednesdayteatime]

Just saw this on Twitter

twitter.com/AGPAwarenessDay/status/1181826260948996099?s=19

Not sure if it's been posted before. Comments on the post are mixed, people not sure if it's a genuine support day or a mean ol' parody account

Shaming is an excellent social pressure when the activity is harmful to individuals and to society.

Whilst I don't disagree, my personal strategy would be to shine as much sunlight on AGP as possible. Talk about it, write about it, investigate it, have articles about it. Bring it out to the open. So it can be identified and addressed.

Most people have no idea it even exists in terms of moves to legitimise it. They don't realise it is born from misogyny and relies on audience participation.

And my motivation is driven purely by a desire to protect women and girls.

"Where do we draw the line?"

We draw the line when men are using women as unwilling props in their pursuit of erections. And we certainly draw the line at autogynephilia. I don't think this is that hard unless you're finding excuses for them.

Women matter more than men's perversions.

of course we should kink shame. Men need to be aware that there are some things you just do not ask other people to do.

Annoyed I'm late to this post, cos I saw something about it a few weeks back and wanted to talk about it.

I shared a post about it on fb, which agp ex saw. He mentioned later that, actually, it would have been quite useful for him, when he was younger, to have general raised awareness of agp. It would have saved him a couple of decades of quietly fretting over whether he was actually gay or transsexual.

I can fully understand those upthread who have no empathy; it is a revoltingly misogynistic fetish. But those who have it need understanding that it is just a fetish, not an indication that they're actually women. At the moment, they talk about the crotch tingles online and immediately get confirmation that this is proof of womanliness. It's a fast track to becoming brave and stunning.

My ex accepts it's a fetish rooted in misogyny and traumatic childhood events, and is making a concerted effort to rein it in and deal with his life differently. He didn't get to this point by being called a woman-hater; he got here because I have sufficient empathy for him that he trusts and listens to me.

I'll add to the chorus of "yes, we need to kink-shame" though. Because without the shame element holding him back it would probably have been too late by the time I met him and introduced him to proper feminism.

Thanks for your post, Tyrotoxicity. Very enlightening to read your first hand experience of this due to your ex.

I can fully understand those upthread who have no empathy; it is a revoltingly misogynistic fetish. But those who have it need understanding that it is just a fetish, not an indication that they're actually women

I don't know if you can answer this question, Tyro.

Doesn't the fact that they are aroused and masturbate to the idea of being a woman logically tell them that it's something to do with sex, and not something to do with being 'born in the wrong body'?

I can understand wanting to keep up the pretence, as it's a constant source of arousal. But in their heart of hearts, surely they know?

You would think so, Datun. And once upon a time that was probably true. These days there's the reddit factor to consider. And it's remarkably easy to squash secret doubts when you're in a community of like-minded people telling you you're normal. I suspect one major factor in ex not buying into the wrong-body narrative is that the only online community he has any interest in is guitarists on facebook. No reddit in sight!

It's not always just about sex either. It becomes escapism, dissociation, a form of maladaptive daydreaming. And if you get to the point of trying to project your maladaptive daydream into society (because large swathes of society that you're in contact with are lying to you that it's real) then whatever's in your heart of hearts is a) fucked and b) probably a long way divorced from how 'normal' people think.

I can't help but think of ex's drummer, who recently declared he's a woman. It's obvious to ex that the kid is mentally ill and developing the fetish and latching onto the wrong-body framework. He would also benefit from increased awareness of agp; it would give him a mechanism to separate his mh issues from his sexual escapism and understand both better.

I think it's also worth bearing in mind that, in their heart of hearts, a hell of a lot of men don't really question the sexist social construction of womanhood that's presented to them. Experience may teach them that some women are Not Like the Other Girls, but that's as far as they get. And they accept the sex-pozzy libfem shite because it makes sense to them.

Which means they have no real doubts about whether feeling sexy in frilly pants is a thing women do, and they never consciously deconstruct that to figure it out from a woman's perspective.

Thanks Tyrotoxicity, very interesting.

I think it's also worth bearing in mind that, in their heart of hearts, a hell of a lot of men don't really question the sexist social construction of womanhood that's presented to them.

I think this is very true. Or they manage to separate women into those who supply their fetish, and those who don't. Like two different species altogether.

Which means they have no real doubts about whether feeling sexy in frilly pants is a thing women do,

Is it your experience that they genuinely think women also feel aroused by their own clothing?

*Which means they have no real doubts about whether feeling sexy in frilly pants is a thing women do,

Is it your experience that they genuinely think women also feel aroused by their own clothing?*

My AGP ex definitely thought so

Has anyone read Julia Serano's Whipping Girl? Serano seems very conflicted about this. On the one hand, Serano doesn't agree that AGP exists. On the other, Serano admits that identifying as a woman brought up strong sexual feelings, and Serano enjoys masochism and sissification. Serano sees this purely as a reflection of women's lower social status. It read to me as though there's a strong erotic charge for Serano in identifying as a woman, but Serano doesn't like to confront why that might be.

As for this 'cis women also have AGP symptoms'... would anyone say the same about men? Do men get turned on just by imagining their own male bodies? By looking at themselves in the mirror? By putting on Y fronts and carrying out stereotypically manly tasks like fixing a car engine? No. So why should it be any different for women?

Bearing in mind I've I've only got in-depth insider knowledge of one agp, I think it's more a case of men not really understanding that the way women's sexuality is presented and discussed is an attempt to condition us. It's not real, it's not natural, it's about training us that being submissive and scantily clad and abusable makes us sexy and powerful and desirable.

They don't understand what real female arousal and desire are about. They believe what's presented to them. And they believe what's presented to them about male sexuality too.

There's being aroused by clothing and there's being aroused by wearing it yourself. It's this idea that, by putting on the performance, a woman gains sexual (and social) power, which is utter bollocks yet believed by so many of both sexes. Any arousal a woman might feel then is about feeling desirable and wanted; the clothes are just a proxy presented for this purpose by the culture.

For my ex, the clothes make him feel like the one who gets abused and humiliated and enjoys it. Pornified patriarchal society taught him that, and he never questioned it - no one around him questioned it - until I did.

I'm half asleep at the moment and at risk of not phrasing myself clearly, so I'll resist the urge to pick Serano apart.

A woman with an autoandrophilic fantasy might use culturally determined signifiers of masculinity as part of her fantasy, but what she's getting off on is being the powerful one, the one who's in control, the one who gets to do rather than be done to, the one who gets to focus on their own pleasure instead of it being all about the other's. The one who isn't Socially Constructed Woman.

I don't know what other women imagine when they're masturbating, but I suspect I'm far from alone in my tendency to imagine myself as possessing a female body that doesn't have the perceived flaws my actual body has. To someone who's not been raised female under patriarchy this may look like agp, but it's not. It's not about being aroused by imagining myself as a socially-approved sexy woman. It's about being so repulsed by my own body as a result of my experiences as a female under patriarchy that I simply couldn't muster successful arousal without taking myself out of the picture. That's not a fetish. It's trauma.

The thing we don't tend to admit around here, because it's understandably hard to try to empathise with adults indulging in obnoxious and abusive behaviour, is that there's often gendered trauma underlying agp too.

Thanks tyro and janie. Very informative.

@Tyrotoxicity thank you for that very perceptive and sensitive post. You're absolutely right, especially about the disassociation during masturbation.

Thanks, Tyro. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Serano some time. As I understand it, Serano was one of the main people who separated out ideas of gender identity and expression. So now someone can be male bodied and express themselves for the most part as a man but still demand to be recognised as a woman.

Serano claimed that the sex Serano had had with Serano’s previous patrners made them all lesbians. Penis notwithstanding.

I'll keep an eye out for a copy of Whipping Girl - unless it's available free online anywhere? - because buying new is hindered by principles.

I should probably read it though; if nothing else, to see if Serano's account is consistent with my own analysis (my suspicion is it will be, based on what little has been said here).

Re: men not feeling sexy doing Man Things so why should women? - from this I get that they feel something when they're performing sexed stereotypes to their own satisfaction, and they think we feel something in the same circumstance. In that, they're right.

What does a woman feel when doing a Manly Man thing? If it's a thing she's been raised to believe she can't and mustn't do? She does it anyway, she does it well, she realises she really is capable of so much more than they told her - and she feels powerful. It doesn't make her feel sexy, or aroused, it makes her feel human instead of lesser, more than they told her she could ever be, in control, competent and capable.

And we all get taught that feminine-sexy is powerful. She's a woman, she's doing something that makes her feel powerful, it's exciting and exhilarating and she feels on top of the world - ergo she must be feeling sexual excitement. Thus inferred existence of crotch-tingles is established.

The assumption is that men and women feel the same way when doing things they've been taught are inappropriate for their sex. Totally ignores the fact that one sex learns that being a sexual object is inappropriate, and the other learns that being a sexual subject is inappropriate.

Expanding on my previous with reference to agp ex - his assumptions about what was happening in my head during sex are remarkably revealing.

He believed that I (as a woman) would be sexually excited by ostensibly being the powerful subject. He believed that if he took the role of pleasure-provider to my pleasure-receiver, this indicated his submission to my 'power'.

This says a lot about what he has been taught about sex and power.

The experience is greatly enhanced for him, in terms of sexual excitement, if he is wearing women's knickers, because he has very successfully internalised the frilly knickers = female = powerless provider of sexual pleasure message that is rampant in our culture.

Of course, underneath it all, he is a man with typical male entitlement, and I am a woman with serious compound trauma issues, which meant that in our sexual interactions, he was the fixed point around which everything revolved. If he didn't fancy something it didn't happen, full stop; if I didn't fancy something I tried it anyway, tried to find a way to make it work for me; tried to train my receptive desire to align with his spontaneous desire.

He had all the power - but he couldn't see it, because he believed that 'power' was all about sexual excitement and desirability. He thought power in the bedroom was something women possess and may freely choose to temporarily hand over; he had no understanding that his perception of handing power to me was nothing more than an illusion he maintained to cater to his dickfeels.

He believed dominant and submissive were roles that people chose based on personal preference. He had no class analysis, no real understanding of sex as an axis of oppression; no idea that as a woman I have spent my life being conditioned to accept the imposition of a submissive role. And so he unwittingly dominated through performing his fantasy of submission.

How's this comparing with Serano, NotTerf? Wholly irrelevant? Obvious parallels?

Spot on Tyrotoxicity. You have explained perfectly what I couldn't put into words Thank you x

And so he unwittingly dominated through performing his fantasy of submission.

This is quite common in "male sub" relationships, I've heard.

Agreed, Eresh - it wouldn't occur to me to describe my relationship as somewhere in the bdsm spectrum, but he made it so, didn't he? That's an unsettling thought.

Janie. Sometimes I feel a bit shit because all I have is words, but so many of us don't even have those. I'm glad I can help with them if nothing else.

Which again is an act of dominance

The fact is that most men do seem to have some sort of a sexual fixation. For some it’s agp or other submissive fetishes like cuckolding or femdom. I suspect this is mostly to do with the misogyny in society. However it also perpetuates the misogyny in society.

So, how to deal? On many fronts, I think.

For example pretty much everyone now agrees that guys with a Madonna/wh* complex have a problem. That is, they want to get married to a “pure” woman but they aren’t interested in sex with said wife because that would “violate” purity. So most of them become cheaters who find a suitably “dirty” woman to have sex with.

These men need to identify the problem before they can solve it, through therapy helping them realize that women are actually humans, not either madonnas or wh* stereotypes.

Likewise men with agp need to realize that women are not sexy stereotypes but actually humans. The first step to solving a problem is to recognize that a problem exists. Therapists especially need to know it exists, and so do men with the fetish.

And so does society at large, because that's where little proto-agp boys are picking up the seeds of their fetish. They don't make it up all by their twisted pubescent selves; it's fed to them on a plate.

Very informative thread. Thank you all.

The media, advertising and societies' objectification of women, and porn, is hugely responsible for this.

where little proto-agp boys are picking up the seeds of their fetish

Current drag trends worry me in this regard.