Article on AGP by Dr Joe Burgo "Sympathy for the Devil: Autogynephilia as Psychic Retreat"

[UtopiaPlanitia]

Dr Burgo likes to distinguish between the 'brave men' who come to him for counselling and the bad, abusive AGPs. This article has so many words to examine these AGP men, and their shame and how much understanding and compassion they need, and no mention of their sexism or misogyny.

Burgo discusses how these men self-soothe by assuming and play-acting ideas of womanhood that are ditsy/bimbo/childlike and free from stress or responsibility, these men envy women’s ability to be placid (yup, that’s women for ya; placid all day long we are).

Burgo is dealing with a population that ostensibly wishes to reduce their paraphiliac behaviour and not with population that embraces it; I don’t believe he has a well-rounded view of the issue.

Burgo has so much compassion for these AGP men but where’s his compassion for women and what these men are doing to women and children. He wants to concentrate on building up these men’s ability to take the initiative and to be masculine. How about telling them that their ideas of womanhood are revolting and sexist Dr Burgo?

This article made me feel angry because of the omission of properly analysing the inherent sexism behind AGP but others on FWR might have different views after reading it so I thought might be interesting to discuss it.

Don’t let the early paragraphs put you off:

'Men presumed to be autogynephiles have a special power to infuriate radical feminists and others who advocate for women’s sex-based rights. To say that these women loathe AGPs would be an understatement. Porn-addled fetishists, sexual deviants, and narcissistic creeps are but a few of the caustic epithets deployed to vilify them. AGPs are self-evidently evil and scarcely human. Men who derive sexual satisfaction from putting on women’s lingerie and masturbating in front of a mirror are the devil incarnate.

In my practice as a psychotherapist, I work with a half dozen such men, some once or twice per week and others for a cluster of sessions at irregular intervals. Unlike the typical TRA who denies struggling with autogynephilia, my clients acknowledge that they’re in the grips of a sexual compulsion that torments them. They know they are not and never can be women, even though they may be tortured by the siren call to “transition.” More than anything, they long to be free of the profound shame they feel.

I approach therapy with these men just as I would with any other client–that is, with an open mind but also with a set of assumptions about human nature and what drives us. Though autogynephilia may seem almost impossible for most of us to fathom, I believe these men struggle with the same challenges the rest of us do.'

https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/sympathy-for-the-devil-autogynephilia

It's the same old misogyny that we see across everything - he's not viewing women as people in our own right.
Instead we're being posited as support animals and when we object, then we're just badly behaved support animals needing correction.

And the bit of her comment immediately above that (my bold):

"While many women find the idea of men masturbating to pornography displayed on their computer screens to be repulsive or offensive, such men often do so because they’re lonely, sad, anxious, or depressed.”

Men also rape women bc they feel lonely, sad, anxious, or depressed. It’s not that women have a problem with men having feelings. It’s that we have a problem that men try to solve their feelings by hurting us, exploiting us, and disrespecting us. How is that so hard for men to understand?

How does the writer distinguish between the “good” and “bad” AGPers?

I usually avoid comments on articles but I’m currently reading my way through the comments on this one - thanks to previous posters’ recommendations.

If I remember correctly, from watching a few podcast interviews with Dr Burgo, he’s a gay man who came out late in life after marrying and having children. He and his wife split up and he’s now in a long-term male partnership. These life developments have left him estranged from his daughter who is identifying as a man, and both Burgo and his family are suffering a lot of heartache and worry regarding this daughter. I also seem to remember he’s been interviewed by Meghan Kelly but I could be confusing him with Stella O’Malley and Sasha Ayad as all three are members of Genspect. I do know he’s interviewed in the recently released film "Lost Boys" where he speaks about his theory that a crisis in masculinity and lack of young men identifying with masculinity is what is causing boys to develop AGP or GD.

Good/brave = paying him for therapy.

This. It's the choices and the behaviours. The therapist has likely met many depressed and struggling men. I doubt he's had to deal with any of those men trying to rape him to make themselves feel better, because those men choose who they control their behaviour with and who they feel entitled to abuse.

He and his patients essentially share a very common core belief: that women have a birth right of being walking male therapeutic resources, and don't really have any internal lives or feelings that matter as men do. Or that they have any relevant thought or life that isn't somehow being useful to or relevant to a man.

a crisis in masculinity and lack of young men identifying with masculinity

All a bit Jordan Peterson.

Yes, I thought that was perhaps the case

My very quick, off the top of my head, thoughts after reading through the comments under the article:

Sexologists and psychologists working in this area (eg Bailey, Cantor, Blanchard, Lawrence and even O’Malley) are overly compassionate for paedophiles, AGPs, paraphiliac men in general and too easily buy into the notion that there’s always a cold and detached mother at the root of each dude’s issues. These professionals have no issue telling women to have compassion for men who are actively dangerous (they’re asking women to ignore their survival instincts and their instincts to protect their children).

AGPs always blame the victim for their fetish i.e. it’s my mother’s fault that I’m this way;, it’s my wife’s fault that I’m this way; I can’t get pregnant and my partner can; my partner doesn’t supply what I need emotionally so I have to cross dress. Sexism and selfishness by the men towards these women is never seen by these men in themselves.

It’s always the line that these men with paraphilias feel such total shame that professionals strongly recommend society to pity, sympathise and empathise with them. Psychologists manage to minimise the harm that these men cause in society and see the men in isolation from this harm they cause. (I’ve heard interviews with Anne Lawrence and the entire narrative from Lawrence is always about shame and how these men need compassion rather than to be told they’re sexist and selfish). I’d love professionals in this area to realise that empathy for women would go a long way to improving diagnoses and potential treatments for these men, and could contribute to making life safer for the women who have to encounter them.

Loved this comment by Sandra (a therapist who stopped working with these men): There are few if any psychiatric disorders that are more exclusively male than dressing up in women’s clothes for sexual reasons. It is almost comical that men who do this usually present it as evidence that they “feel like a woman” or even that they are a woman.

Commenter Cecilia Caporossi makes excellent comments regarding the total lack of empathy for, and understanding of, women from Burgo and the men he counsels.

And porn, where is Burgo’s criticism of the sexist nature of porn and its negative influence on how men view women?

And, as one commentator pointed out, why can’t Burgo understand how terrifying women find it when their male partner is trying to skinwalk as them and when they realise that the man is only in a relationship with her so he can study and emulate her.

To be honest, I think I prefer the analyses of AGP that both Janice Raymond and Germaine Greer have written.

It's so easy to blame women. So easy, so lazy. An AGP is a textbook unreliable narrator, you'd think the therapists would be wise to it.

Perhaps AGPs need something like Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 step program. It seems like an addiction, perhaps it should be treated like one.

I’m glad you found the article informative Zebracat. I think the thread vibe is frustration with Burgo and his blindspots rather than hostility. Women are fed up of the inability of (often) male sexologists, psychologists, and politicians to see woman as full people and not just as support and sympathy providers for paraphiliac men. All the compassion is aimed towards the men and very little towards the women who have to deal with their harmful behaviours.

Was there anything in particular in the article that you found really interesting? I’m always curious to hear different views in these discussions.

As said, Bungo is a man and his loyalty is to other men!

Just checked out the 12 step program. Ditch all the 'higher power' nonsense.

Psychologists manage to minimise the harm that these men cause in society and see the men in isolation from this harm they cause. (I’ve heard interviews with Anne Lawrence and the entire narrative from Lawrence is always about shame and how these men need compassion

I think this is one of the reasons Lundy Bancroft's work is a bracing and different perspective read. He has no sentimental view of the abusive men he works with; his work is not about enabling or excusing them, he works with them through their excuses and armchair psychology that serves to avoid taking responsibility or ownership, he won't have 'I can't help it' or 'I lost control', and instead works on recognising that feelings may happen, but behaviours are a choice. And are rooted in respect or disrespect for others, or an unbalanced sense of self importance.

This seems to me much, much more relevant and likely to go somewhere positive than 'awww bless' and expecting women to suck up awful behaviour. Most women know men in their lives who have had a hard time and who life hasn't been kind to, and who would not dream of going around treating other people like this.

What he is doing is worse than lazy, he is pushing a harmful narrative about how women's disgust at a paraphilia being acted out in public without our consent should be taken personally. How does he intend to help men with AGP if he can't grasp the root of their anguish that we won't comply?
I used to believe therapists had training and safeguards in place to help guard against being charmed, or groomed.

I wonder if he realises that some of those paying him are getting off on the fact he's being paid to sit there and listen to their inner most thoughts.

(Shudders!)

@UtopiaPlanitia . I’ve met a number of men who wanted to be women, for whatever reason, and I just haven’t got it, because they do rely on stereotypes of womanhood, and it has always seemed as ridiculous to me as wanting to be a cat or a camel, and showing that by eating sardines, or covering your floor with sand. I didn’t feel that the writer shares the stereotypes of womanhood, or that he expects us to be support animals. He says he has compassion, for the men he works with, but also that his compassion is sorely tested at times. I used to work with criminals , and it is necessary to hold on to an acknowledgement of someone’s humanity even when their actions have been unspeakable., both to assess their capacity to reflect on damage they may have done, and change, and to learn more about the motivation of the cohort. I think that is what he does. I feel my understanding has improved. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t advise any friend who found herself a trans widow to run and not look back .
Sexuality and attraction is weird, I m pretty vanilla, but even so can trace elements back to childhood, the boy I loved at 10 was my masculine ideal for a long time, and my Dh is similar in both looks and personality to my stepfather, who was lovely and transformed my childhood from dangerous to safe. I thought the article was thoughtful and thought provoking. I particularly appreciated the explanation of the intensity of rage when someone says no to these men.

On the whole, I found this article interesting, as were the comments. It is also helpful to get a male perspective to compare and contrast with the female perspective on these boards. I would love to see a long form discussion between the author, commenter Sandra and commenter Ute.

This article is mostly about describing these men, their behaviors and possible psychological reasons they behave this way (including a dose of mother blaming). He posits that AGP is a type of narcissism. He describes it as a self soothing activity to relieve stress and anxiety?! He wants to help these men deal with their torment and shame.

What is absent are examples of successful treatment and what recovery looks like. Is the author trying to help these men stop this behavior or just stop feeling shame? At what point are they considered cured? Like a prior poster, I have to wonder whether psychology or psychotherapy is of any use. At some point the talking has to stop and the clients have to change their behavior.

"AGPs are self evidently evil and scarcely human" (para 3).

No, I don't think women believe that. It's disappointing that he sets up this straw man at such an early point in his narrative.

I found all the stuff about motivations interesting to see laid out, but I don't think any of them will be a surprise to those of us who've been listening to TRAs and women who got in the way of their desires for years now. They tell us who they are.

I like the reference to Lundy Bancroft above. It's not who AGPs are, and their motivations are kind of irrelevant to those of us who don't need to fix them, we just need to live alongside them in society, it's what they DO.

They're changing the law, they're changing the language, they're influencing every sector. It doesn't matter if they're very, very sad - they don't have the right to damage others.

then perhaps it takes a sympathetic therapist to achieve that.

Isn't that true generally?

There are all kinds of negative behaviours people can enter therapy for, be it addiction related, people who have affairs, people with a compulsion to steal, people that eat weird things to put themselves in hospital, hoarders, and a thousand other things. All of them can involve a distorted view of reality, and many can result in abuse of some kind to their families.

Most of these have their origins somewhere in the past, and perhaps some biological propensity but it's not always possible to figure out what it was. Clearly there is something about the human mind - which is a biological organ - that is somehow built in that can manifest, under the right conditions, these kinds of compulsions, which so often seem incomprehensible to most.

How can any therapist hope to treat these things without understanding the way in which they are satisfying to the patient? And in understanding having some kind of empathy?

It is a rare person, if such a person even exists, who is able to rationally argue themselves out of these kinds of behaviours once they have become established.

I didn't read it that Burgo is trying to affirm gender delusions, quite the opposite. He's saying that only a few AGPs recognise they have a problem and want to tackle it.

Until recently AGP was kept secret, so little treatment or analysis. Now it is stunning and brave, so no treatment or analysis.

The comments below the essay are concerned with the social norms that have put this particular kink/addiction/compulsion/disorder beyond criticism. Which are fair.

On misogyny and gender roles it is harder to draw the line between projections exclusive to AGP (please invent shorter word), general societal assumptions and actual male/female differences.

One commenter notes that in giving deviants space to open up, the therapist risks empathising too much. Is non judgementalism a problem throughout therapy? At what point does the therapist tell the patient to pull themselves together and risk that patient scuttling off? Or shift the power dynamic where patient takes instruction from therapist and absolves their own responsibilities and judgements.

I have met a few GC activist women with AGP sons. They are not affirming. But they also love their sons and see them as whole person who has fixated on this destructive behaviour.

He's saying that only a few AGPs recognise they have a problem and want to tackle it.

But when they speak about their lives, they all say that they know they have a problem and have tried to tackle it.

This is from the article about Debbie Hayton in the Times today:

From early boyhood, Hayton, now 55, fought a powerful inner urge to be female, yet went on to marry and father three children.

Hayton compares tamping down this urge to the intense, incessant effort required to keep a beachball submerged in water. Let go for a second and it will fly to the surface.

As a teenager, he’d leave his home town, Kendal, to buy women’s clothes in boutiques where he wouldn’t be recognised, cross-dressing in secret, then, after sexual release, feeling only confused self-disgust.

He barely dated girls until, in his third year at Newcastle University studying astrophysics, he met Stephanie, just 19.

When they fell in love an odd thing happened: the beachball vanished. “I thought I’d been cured,” says Hayton. “That I was finally free.” But after six months the beachball was back.

A dozen times between 25 and 45, Hayton took a bin bag of clothes to the dump, vowing to stop. Binge, purge, repeat. “I was like an alcoholic or someone trying to quit smoking.”

Every AGP tells a similar story, about an uncontrollable urge which they have tried to suppress. Most of them marry women and have children with them, which doesn't cure them, but causes enormous amounts of distress to their wives and children.

I don't know if Hayton has had any therapy for his condition, but is there any evidence that the therapy works? Has anyone ever been cured or been able to suppress their AGP urges?

I commented earlier that Burgo seems to suggest that having a female partner would help them. The evidence shows otherwise, and it shouldn't be suggested by a therapist that women should be utilised as therapeutic aids in this way.

it shouldn't be suggested by a therapist that women should be utilised as therapeutic aids in this way.

Very good point.

It would be interesting to hear this therapist and other therapist' views on how they'd advise a woman entering into a relationship with a man in such a difficult emotional state, particularly with a belief that she can rescue and repair him. 'Beauty and the beast' I think it's called. And/or codependency. And what that would say about her emotional health and boundaries.

There is a lot of it about in women who sentimentalise and fantasise about selflessly rescuing difficult men through their love and nurture, Layla Moran is a well known example. But it's theoretical sentimental fantasy, not their reality.

Every AGP tells a similar story, about an uncontrollable urge which they have tried to suppress. Most of them marry women and have children with them, which doesn't cure them, but causes enormous amounts of distress to their wives and children.

I don't know if Hayton has had any therapy for his condition, but is there any evidence that the therapy works? Has anyone ever been cured or been able to suppress their AGP urges?

My suspicion is that whenever some kind of fetish like this is triggered, the longer before it's dealt with, and the more it encompases the whole sexual experience of the young man, the harder it is to extinguish.

Basically every time the sexual urge is satisfied through the fetish, the more that route to sexual relief is made stronger, and the more it will come to dominate the individual's mental sex life. And on the contrary, other satisfying sexual experiences will somewhat mitigate against that. We see this kind of pattern with pornography addiction in young men who have little or no sexual experience.

The most fruitful way to address it all is going to be avoiding the triggers. I don't think it's possible to do so completely, sometimes they are very random or so normal we couldn't, but I do think the general sexualization in our culture, tv, advertisements, and the exposure of kids to this material has to make it more common.

But we also give kids the message that no sexual thoughts or practices are bad if they are just in their imagination, or if no one is hurt, or if there is consent. Activities they do alone are ok, fantasy is ok. In an effort to avoid "shaming" kids we've basically told them that their thoughts can't hurt them or anyone else, there aren't bad habits in terms of sexual thoughts and fantasies. So a teenager can go years indulging this stuff while being reassured in school classes and by adults that it is nothing to worry about even if it is weird.

At the same time, online life means kids are not only accessing weirder sexual material, they are not having in person sexual experiences much. So I think any that go to therapy are starting well behind.

Then for the past 20 years the ones that do go to therapy are being told that this is all ok too, and the way to get relief is to take it further.

What kinds of therapeutic approaches would be best for established AGPs hasn't been really tried seriously, from what I can see. These things don't come out of thin air, they come from understanding the causes and lots of practice with actual patients to see what works. Both have been lacking for decades, plus a culture that makes the whole situation worse to start with.