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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.
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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