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