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Notes -
Eros vs Venus, AGP, and MtF Trans
Apropos of the preamble to the latest ACX post. In part an evolution of / different angle on my previous post on the subject. (Tagging @zackmdavis as relevant to your interests.)
In the book The Four Loves, in the section on sexual love, C.S. Lewis draws a distinction between Eros and Venus. Eros is romantic love, or the state of "being in love"; Venus is sexual desire (one might say "lust", but without the connotation of immorality); as he writes, "I mean by Venus not what is sexual in some cryptic or rarefied sense [...] but in a perfectly obvious sense." Lewis is at pains to point out that the two are distinct (albeit closely connected) and that one can easily experience one without the other.
He allows that "to the evolutionist, Eros will be something that grows out of Venus" but points out that this is not, generally, "what happens within the consciousness of the individual." With Eros, the lover "is full of desire, but the desire may not be sexually toned."
Conversely, that Venus can exist without any trace of Eros is almost too obvious (at least to most men) as to need mentioning.
Why is this relevant to the autogynephilia/trans/Blanchardianism controversy? Because AGP, framed as a fetish, is seen (by both sides) as being about (a misfiring of) Venus. This makes it disreputable, both in itself and especially as a motive for transition, but perhaps even more importantly this limited concept doesn't seem to fit with the introspective reports of many trans individuals, even those who admittedly have some element of AGP. Blanchardians tend to dismiss these reports as self-serving narratives (admittedly not without some justification, given the occasionally documented confabulations about historical femininity in MtF transitioners, and of course the obvious psychological pressure); anti-Blanchardians tend to take them as proof positive that the AGP->trans hypothesis is false. (Anne Lawrence, a Blanchardian, allows for some nuance with the "AGP as sexual orientation" framing, but this seems to be not quite right and is still a "Venus"-first explanation.)
My strong suspicion is that, while Venus-AGP is the most obvious (and, um, salacious) manifestation, the thing that mostly drives trans-feelings, and thus actual transition, is something of an Eros-AGP. This may or may not co-occur with Venus-AGP, and when it does, may either pre- or post- date it, and either may be the stronger -- just as in normal Eros and Venus.
Why do I think this? Because it is an explanation which seems to account better for reported experiences than the others on offer. "But I don't feel like I'm in love with being a woman, I feel like I am or should be a woman (in some deep sense)!" Yes... but this actually rhymes with an aspect of Eros! Lewis again:
And also, there is my own experience (as a sometime sufferer of AGP of both sorts): my first crush included the confusing and intense desire to be the girl I was crushing on. The purely sexual aspects of AGP -- the fetish part, what I'm calling Venus-AGP -- may be the most externally visible, but it seems likely to me that Eros-AGP, whether manifesting as an intense but nonsexual desire to be female or a sweetness and feeling of rightness in contemplation of oneself as such, as a much more powerful emotional experience, is more likely to lead to transition.
Again, this says little about which set of feelings precedes the other or of their causal relationship. I am pretty confident that they frequently feed each other, and that indulgence and encouragement strengthen them, which is why in many people they seem to intensify over time. (This is true of nearly every other mental and emotional disposition; it would be surprising if it were not the case.) Whether Eros-AGP is preceded by Venus-AGP or not; whether Venus-AGP is seen as important by the sufferer -- these things are maybe not so relevant. As strong as the urges of Venus are, it is Eros which is more powerful, which feels transcendent from the inside, which motivates truly extreme decisions. Perhaps in this case, too, it is the dominant proximate factor.
Your experience with your first crush is yet another reminder that in some ways, people are surprisingly different - like not realizing that the color blue is real and distinct, or that smells exist in the same way, or the people who are clinically blind but don’t know it. It has never occurred to me that I, or anyone else, would want to be the person of their interest - the existence of the desire itself is totally foreign.
As for the direction of causality, any stable belief probably has to be self reinforcing.
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I wonder if there are studies on the internal/external Identity-Object relationship in transgender psychology. Is this limited to the sexual, or does it hold broadly? For instance, are transgenders more likely to believe that they are of the same kind as their idols, without being able to discern a mismatch in personality/looks/skills? We might see, for instance, that transgenders interested in music are more likely to believe they are better musicians than they are, or those interested in writing are more likely to believe they are already a good writer when they are not. I wonder if you couldn’t do a test to see how well a transgender can objectively discern their characteristics and skills in relation to the social standards and affinities that they have. I also wonder if there is any relationship to parenting histories — when the child professed a desire to be an astronaut did the mom immediately give him a NASA shirt and tell him he will be an astronaut, are there differences in static vs growth mindset, lack of objective judgment by parenrs, etc
That’s the first time I hear of such a hypothesis and I would say that while there might be a subgroup to which this applies to - the exhibitionist type that flaunts their bodies regardless how well they pass and engage in hugboxing on Reddit - the majority of trans people I know are the opposite in that they have body dysmorphic disorder, imposter syndrome, and issues with self worth. Of course the former group is going to be more visible, but applying conclusions to the entire transgender phenomenon based on them would be a mistake.
I don't think what you are saying contradicts each other. A la "The Last Psychiatrist," having incorrect beliefs and assumptions about your own skills and relationship with the world is what craters self esteem. Fewer kids testing themselves on dangerous playground equipment created a rise in anxiety disorders and people who cannot perform risk management.
I would expect such a person to have very low self esteem once they are grown.
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I think there are potentially two things going on here that we should be careful not to conflate:
It might very well be the case that (2) is more prevalent among people who decide they are trans than among those who do not, but I doubt it is a strongly indicative characteristic in the same way as (1). A bunch of (2) is just in the cultural water (particularly in progressive circles); e.g. "if you have written anything, you are a writer [regardless of whether it is published or earns you a living]", referring to anyone who does some math in school as a "mathematician", etc. so I would be surprised if the tendency was that much stronger in trans individuals than in generic progressives.
These are good observations. "Am I prone to pretend I am what I want to be" is kinda a given -- like any self described "Alpha male", for example. Or the people who inspired the phrase "the tolerant left". People do that a lot.
The other question is much more interesting, and Zach's "Sexual Dimorphism in Yudkowsky's Sequences, in Relation to My Gender Problems" is insightful here.
The fascinating thing to me, is that despite being a quite gender conforming (and non-AGP) straight guy, when I read his description of his underlying desires it resonated. I could have written the exact same thing with one minor and meaning preserving word swap.
Consider this (word swapped) quote from Zach's post:
The relevant difference between Zach and me isn't that we feel "X is good" for different X. It's the same X.
Here's another quote, this one direct:
The most obvious way to fulfil this desire isn't "become a woman", but to own a woman -- but that doesn't fit with being (in his words) a sensitive boy who was ideologically committed to "antisexism" as defined by the religion of feminism. And if "owning" a woman is too unthinkable, you might come up with creative solutions.
When phrased that way it does sound sexist, and words do kinda fail here, but there's a nonsexist way of achieving this too, which Zach touches on slightly here:
If you can imagine a woman saying to you "I don't want to be 'your girlfriend'. I want to be yours" -- and meaning it, and being right to mean it, then you can love her "as an extension of yourself". There's no more "needing permission" because the mutual love breaks down the boundaries and the idea your lover "needs your permission" to touch you just becomes absurd and nonsensical. "Wanting my body to be shaped like that"/"wanting the soul behind those eyes to be mine" takes on a different literal meaning, but the desire being fulfilled is the same.
The question is whether "X is good" leads to "I want to be X" or "I want to be sexually/romantically involved with X".
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Related and potentially even more controversial questions:
Building off of my other comment here, homosexuality could be viewed through the same lens.
Only in this case X represents masculine virtue, and the "mistake" is in the other direction.
When a young boy observes his dad do something requiring great strength and is in awe (say, efficiently chopping down a tree with an axe), the result is that he wants to become strong like that when he grows up. He's likely to start imitating his dad, swinging axes or whatever his dad did to build/use his strength. Eventually, he becomes strong himself and chops down trees simply when they need to be chopped down, taking his physical strength for granted because it has just become part of who he is. Or he doesn't become strong, and is simply aware of what he's missing out by not being stronger.
When a woman is similarly awed by a man's strength, she's less likely to imitate his strength building behaviors and her fantasies are of a different kind. When you take the same expression of awe and way of relating and put it on a normal straight woman, it's no longer "I want to become more like him" -- it's a crush. She's attracted to him, as a way to have some of his strength as her own.
This seems to make some predictions too. If homosexuality is about noticing masculine virtue and fetishizing it rather then working to integrate, embody, and get bored with masculine virtue, then one might predict that it would lead to overemphasis of the appearance of the traits themselves rather than the end use. It would predict that working construction jobs and watching football "aren't very gay", and that bodybuilding -- even in nominally straight bodybuilders -- is "kinda gay". And that seems to fit, as shown by the bodybuilding communities frequent need to say "no homo".
It would also predict that homosexuality is correlated with narcissism, which appears to bear out (p<.001). The implication that "I can't embody masculine virtue and move on with my life" seems to predict lower self esteem too, which also appears to be true (p<.001), but I have to admit that I didn't think of that connection until seeing the result.
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