It was a pleasant surprise to see this brave midweek discussion. I always appreciate your nuanced takes, observations and thoughts and I believe they are so vital and important to understanding the issue.
About testosterone and the male sex drive, I've had two pregnancies, one with a son and another with a daughter. Hormonally they felt v…
It was a pleasant surprise to see this brave midweek discussion. I always appreciate your nuanced takes, observations and thoughts and I believe they are so vital and important to understanding the issue.
About testosterone and the male sex drive, I've had two pregnancies, one with a son and another with a daughter. Hormonally they felt very different. I was angry all of the time for no reason while pregnant with my son and my sex drive peaked (with my daughter I was just miserable all the time with little sex drive, lol). I've heard similar anecdotes from other women who carried sons (though some have said they didn't notice a change). I suspect I was sensitive to the increased testosterone running through my system and think it's likely the closest I will get to understanding the male sex drive and it is one of those things I look back on and shake my head at the power of testosterone.
As far as factors with trans identified males, my BIL identifies as a trans woman. Full disclosure, I feel he has been incredibly disrespectful to me so I am using biological pronouns and identifiers. It was shocking when he came out because he was hairy with a beard and had major "I'm a dude" energy, he wasn't feminine at all. I do think there is some AGP because of a very memorable conversation before he came out. It was memorable because it was so bizarre. He expressed confusion about why people have role models and he was morally against the idea of having role models. The conversation stuck out in my mind as peculiar because having role models is something so fundamental to being human that I could not understand how someone could express moral outrage at it and it wasn't until Anne Lawrence's (I believe) observation that AGPs don't have role models because they are in love with themselves that I could make sense of it.
But the other thing that strikes me about him is the desire to be a victim and get sympathy from it. He has a martyrdom complex. Meanwhile I've seen him engage in horrific acts of cyberbullying against others but he justifies it under being victimized by their beliefs type thing. What is interesting to me is that before he was trans he was a vegetarian, and I was a vegetarian for several years until I had to stop for health reason. What confused me for years was he presented vegetarianism as something he was discriminated for because it was so hard to find meatless options, when I never had an issue finding meatless options at restaurants. Looking back it was like he was trying to get victimhood status but failing because vegetarianism is not rare and was well accommodated, so he tried again with trans and was a lot more successful.
I think it's a Woke movement problem, and suspect that as a heterosexual white male he had too much privilege points and being trans was a way to come out at the bottom while, perversely, getting a lot of control in the process by having everyone dote on him as a victim and excuse bad behavior from him because he was a victim (I've had families members say that we have to understand that because he's trans he's just been through so much discrimination that we should be understanding even though he has a very nice job and the typical benefits that AGP males who transition in midlife have).
Which brings me to the whole AGPs being aroused by being feminized and degraded. I think we have to look at some BDSM dynamics to understand what is happening here, so please bear with me. In "Masochism and the Self" RF Baumeister notes that people who tend to be masochists and enjoy being degraded or "feminized" tend to be powerful men, people who are judges or high ranking politicians or hold jobs where they wield a lot of power. Baumeister makes a strong argument that masochists are not attracted to pain, but the relinquishing the responsibilities of their high level position by role playing as someone powerless. A few things of relevance to note is that while the masochist appears to people outside of the dynamic to be subjugated, the person role playing as the dom actually has less control in the dynamic because the dom is trying to fulfill the masochists' fantasies and read their mind as to what they want out of the encounter (this is what makes these role playing scenarios different from abusive situation where someone genuinely dominates another with no care for their wishes or desire and why people who have experience with abusive, dominating people can justifiably feel a lot of outrage here). Basically in consensual BDSM role play, the submissive is the one in control. So people perceive the masochist as having no control when really they have all of the control and a lot of people who are doms in consensual BDSM role play do not enjoy being doms and are doing it to appease a partner and burn out of the role. And I think there is a parallel between the submissive in BDSM and the male AGP whose wife burns out trying to fulfill their fantasy of being a woman.
So even though AGPs are aroused at the thought of being demeaned and humiliated and feminized, when acting out their sexual fantasies they retain control and expect people to react to a certain way (and when the world doesn't it is shattering to them). And you do see in Men's Rights circles men making the argument that women control everything by manipulation and through being powerless (an idea that I don't think holds a lot of water and I can understand why women are outraged at it) and it seems as though they want to try to dominate through those means and can be rather successful at it.
I think our current societal paradigms around victims are intended to be helpful but are unintentionally enabling basically. And ironically the people who benefit the most are prone to abusive, controlling and dominating behavior.
As with all things though, I think you two have a lot of wisdom in pointing out that there are scales of behavior and that we have to take each individual as an individual and understand that person in the context of their lives. While some AGPs may have a martyrdom complex like my BIL, I'm sure others don't. And I'm also sure there are AGPs who are not abusive, etc. Thanks for your nuance and the hard work that you are doing here.
It was a pleasant surprise to see this brave midweek discussion. I always appreciate your nuanced takes, observations and thoughts and I believe they are so vital and important to understanding the issue.
About testosterone and the male sex drive, I've had two pregnancies, one with a son and another with a daughter. Hormonally they felt very different. I was angry all of the time for no reason while pregnant with my son and my sex drive peaked (with my daughter I was just miserable all the time with little sex drive, lol). I've heard similar anecdotes from other women who carried sons (though some have said they didn't notice a change). I suspect I was sensitive to the increased testosterone running through my system and think it's likely the closest I will get to understanding the male sex drive and it is one of those things I look back on and shake my head at the power of testosterone.
As far as factors with trans identified males, my BIL identifies as a trans woman. Full disclosure, I feel he has been incredibly disrespectful to me so I am using biological pronouns and identifiers. It was shocking when he came out because he was hairy with a beard and had major "I'm a dude" energy, he wasn't feminine at all. I do think there is some AGP because of a very memorable conversation before he came out. It was memorable because it was so bizarre. He expressed confusion about why people have role models and he was morally against the idea of having role models. The conversation stuck out in my mind as peculiar because having role models is something so fundamental to being human that I could not understand how someone could express moral outrage at it and it wasn't until Anne Lawrence's (I believe) observation that AGPs don't have role models because they are in love with themselves that I could make sense of it.
But the other thing that strikes me about him is the desire to be a victim and get sympathy from it. He has a martyrdom complex. Meanwhile I've seen him engage in horrific acts of cyberbullying against others but he justifies it under being victimized by their beliefs type thing. What is interesting to me is that before he was trans he was a vegetarian, and I was a vegetarian for several years until I had to stop for health reason. What confused me for years was he presented vegetarianism as something he was discriminated for because it was so hard to find meatless options, when I never had an issue finding meatless options at restaurants. Looking back it was like he was trying to get victimhood status but failing because vegetarianism is not rare and was well accommodated, so he tried again with trans and was a lot more successful.
I think it's a Woke movement problem, and suspect that as a heterosexual white male he had too much privilege points and being trans was a way to come out at the bottom while, perversely, getting a lot of control in the process by having everyone dote on him as a victim and excuse bad behavior from him because he was a victim (I've had families members say that we have to understand that because he's trans he's just been through so much discrimination that we should be understanding even though he has a very nice job and the typical benefits that AGP males who transition in midlife have).
Which brings me to the whole AGPs being aroused by being feminized and degraded. I think we have to look at some BDSM dynamics to understand what is happening here, so please bear with me. In "Masochism and the Self" RF Baumeister notes that people who tend to be masochists and enjoy being degraded or "feminized" tend to be powerful men, people who are judges or high ranking politicians or hold jobs where they wield a lot of power. Baumeister makes a strong argument that masochists are not attracted to pain, but the relinquishing the responsibilities of their high level position by role playing as someone powerless. A few things of relevance to note is that while the masochist appears to people outside of the dynamic to be subjugated, the person role playing as the dom actually has less control in the dynamic because the dom is trying to fulfill the masochists' fantasies and read their mind as to what they want out of the encounter (this is what makes these role playing scenarios different from abusive situation where someone genuinely dominates another with no care for their wishes or desire and why people who have experience with abusive, dominating people can justifiably feel a lot of outrage here). Basically in consensual BDSM role play, the submissive is the one in control. So people perceive the masochist as having no control when really they have all of the control and a lot of people who are doms in consensual BDSM role play do not enjoy being doms and are doing it to appease a partner and burn out of the role. And I think there is a parallel between the submissive in BDSM and the male AGP whose wife burns out trying to fulfill their fantasy of being a woman.
So even though AGPs are aroused at the thought of being demeaned and humiliated and feminized, when acting out their sexual fantasies they retain control and expect people to react to a certain way (and when the world doesn't it is shattering to them). And you do see in Men's Rights circles men making the argument that women control everything by manipulation and through being powerless (an idea that I don't think holds a lot of water and I can understand why women are outraged at it) and it seems as though they want to try to dominate through those means and can be rather successful at it.
I think our current societal paradigms around victims are intended to be helpful but are unintentionally enabling basically. And ironically the people who benefit the most are prone to abusive, controlling and dominating behavior.
As with all things though, I think you two have a lot of wisdom in pointing out that there are scales of behavior and that we have to take each individual as an individual and understand that person in the context of their lives. While some AGPs may have a martyrdom complex like my BIL, I'm sure others don't. And I'm also sure there are AGPs who are not abusive, etc. Thanks for your nuance and the hard work that you are doing here.