10 Comments

I assume that when you say, “Sexual awakening can occur in a complicated manor,” that you mean “manner.” But I kind of like the connotations that go with “manor.”

Is that what is called a Freudian typo?

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"Complicated Manor" sounds like the worst NBC prime time soap opera of the 80s

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That's what happens when you release extra episodes and your eyes go a little bit haywire! Thanks for the catch, we'll fix it!

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Hi! This might be my first comment. I’ve watched alllllll your stuff. My son is trans and he’s estranged. Sucks. Anyhow Ray Alex Williams gave me a fair bit of peace and acceptance with his AGP content on YouTube. He brings up that autogynophelia and autism share an inwardly directed focus and this hadn’t occurred to me - the co occurrence could definitely be connected - I was thinking that it was just a confusion / mistake, now I’m thinking it’s correlated neurologically. A few other thoughts… I’m willing to bet furies have always existed. Humans have lived with animals - horses, dogs, farm animals, cats - I’m certain furies and other unmentionable stuff absolutely were there and I’ve heard of it from historical accounts. Second - I’m willing to bet that autoandrophelia is a big part of ROGD girls. I live with a trans man and I’m 100% sure he’s autoandro for gay guys and he’s been in a long term relationship with one. I know loads of women all ages who love reading gay male romance porn. Finally, dudes are not mysterious but they are pretty gross (in a “we love them anyway” kind of way). They have way less disgust than women and this makes sense in an evolutionary lens. I suspect the added sex drive and the lower disgust threshold is what we are seeing with their paraphelic behavior. I would not use the word mysterious for it. Shocking, mind blowing, worrisome… but also, in hindsight, not mysterious. It is so hard for women to understand and the young men need adult men to help them navigate this to arrive at a healthy place - but how do we know we can trust the adult men?? It’s quite fraught. And another thing, this is pretty important, Stella started to say it but didn’t finish. I learned from Deborah Soh that it’s not a paraphilia unless it causes distress(or is illegal). What Stella said about all of us having little secret sexy ideas that we explore privately may be right and the thing we have to be saying is what’s a healthy way to explore and what’s a path to suffering? and we don’t know. We don’t know why some people just have fun and are fine and others try it once and lose their whole lives. That’s an important question!

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About the difficulty of discussing teenagers becoming sexual. During the early 2000s, there was a counter-movement to sex education in American "red states." Indiana and Alabama were especially notorious in this regard. Coincidentally, at the very same time, the internet and then broadband arrived in both states. So what happened is that young people, in particular young gay men, got all their sexual "education" from pornography, with immediate skyrocketing rates of HIV transmission as a result.

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This was a courageous and humble take at exploring male sexuality, kindly and gracefully done.

One key thing not touched on is how much male sexuality varies based on intensity, with high libido a particularly dangerous aspect of adolescence, when there is the lowest awareness and skill level.

With experience comes understanding, acceptance and an ability to more routinely manage everything.

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Functional societies will also have a certain aspect of male policing, nurturing but with an implicit message that some things are out of bounds, and may be met with fatal force.

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I would be curious for an exploration of mtf transition and childhood trauma, a couple of people I have known had a similar path to transition, autistic traits, shame, gender diversity as a child but coupled with some really rubbish childhood experiences with one or both parents leading to almost the development of a fantasy self (female, I don't want to be my dad, or life would be better as a girl) to escape to and then puberty on top. Transitioning then coming later in life in response to further trauma, almost as a way of not dealing with things and a sort of comfort blanket. I also find it interesting that some men accept that changing to be a woman is their preferred or easier option rather than the very last thing they would do and they seem unaware of the ensuing damage it can do to both themselves and others (although I think gender affirming care isn't helping). I also expect there are many many men who have a sexual fantasy about being a woman, men seem to have sexual fantasies about all sorts of things, mostly it probably stays in their head, being a woman having sex is not that weird, it's when it's an obsession it's a real concern.

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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.

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I have made this comment on the YT version as well. I don't know if it has any weight, and would like to hear others thoughts, happy to be dismissed.

I think that there is a further distinction to be made with some of the males and that is that there are those that are Sneaky Fuckers as described by John Maynard Smith. They may, as you noted, have AGP trait and use the opportunity that affords to have sexual relationships that may not have been available to them without taking on the character of the less dominate male e.g. Men that set up profiles on Lesbian dating apps. The SJW men that are very vocally supportive of men in womens sports and changing rooms. We are chimps after all.

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