This article about autogynephilia adds to a theory I have. The men are escaping from the demands of masculinity. And so many of the young transitioning women are escaping from the demands of femininity. Is transgenderism the result of our strict sex roles?
But do Western societies still have strict sex roles? I think that we have slowly been moving towards more equality between the sexes in the past few decades. Of course it's not perfect and we're no where near seen as equals. But if transgenderism is a response to strict sex roles, why has it only exploded in the past decade? While I think that it maybe the case that women and girls are opting out of what they see is their sex role from degrading and violent porn, I din't know if it's the same for trans identified males.
I think the movement we see is forced, performative, and against the inherent nature most of us have as men or women. Men restrain aggression, women restrain nurturing (to be stereotypical) but it ends up being a constant battle against our inner nature.
Our daughter has been caught in the trans cult and the only answer she can give us is that she doesn’t like being a woman. I get it.
FWIW, I wouldn’t want to be a woman if doing so meant I needed to simultaneously look like Heidi Klum, be a business mogul like Sheryl Sandberg, parent perfectly (and be judged on how perfect your kids are), etc. Because that’s the message that’s being communicated through all kinds of sources.
But with the progressive mindset, a young woman can be “trans” and therefore is freed from any responsibility to fit into any of those archetypes (let alone all of them). It must be a huge psychic weight lifted.
Agree. If you read posts in detrans forums on Reddit, you will see that a lot of female to male trans have mental health issues, and not only. They often have inflammatory conditions that disturb their sexual hormones.
Your viewpoint is so predictably myopic and reductive. It's an essay about a therapist helping men, and you can't help but comment on the uninque villany towards women represented by violent porn, which in fact caters more towards the tastes of women. I think your unimaginative, unempathetic, onedimensional views on the way patriarchy functions in society may be contributing to the strict sex rolls you seem to think have disapeared at the turn of the centruy. Maybe we should stop viewing women as perpetual victims and men as inherent predators. <3 get well soon!!!
Sex roles in the Western countries are nowhere as strict as in Eastern countries and Africa. And yet it is in Western countries that there are so many transgenders. Patriarchy is not the main reason behind trans identities.
From the strength of your reaction I'm obviously missing something. Of course I can never know what it's like to be a man and I'm on the outside looking in. Can you tell me more about how you see the current role of men in today's society and the demands of masculinity?
The men in my life seem to be freer from the responsibilities of being the sole breadwinner and can more freely express their emotions and nurturing sides than what I saw in previous generations. But I'm aware that is a limited sample.
I think you and diet-stress made an accurate observation that western societies today are more equitable than they were in the past. Unfortunately a lot of the culutal changes have only been superficial. It will take a long time to reduce the power of deeply ingrained stereotypes especially when many of them are probabilisticly connected to biology.
You might not realize this in your day to day life, but women are still overly sexualized in media and disproportionately marketed to by the beauty industy; women are still taught to be chaste and value virginity; and women still struggle to be seen as leaders as exemplified by Kamala Harris in the U.S.. Meanwhile, men are still expected to outearn their partners in heterosexual relationships; men still don't cry and overwhelmingly suffer from alexithymia; and men still feel victimized by asinine femenist rhetoric which essentializes them as perverse, selfish agressors.
"Conversely", (in the prop logic deffinition of the word), I think the disporportionate increase in trans identified people in the west is partially due to the greater equality in of itself. While in the past it was obvious that women were legally and socially second class citizens, I believe that women's place in society has risen to the extent that a logical person might have good reason to become a man or a woman, depending on their intrests and predilictions.
Following this line of reasoning, I have special empathy for young people with same sex attraction. Biologically, homosexuality will never be normal in the literal sense. If someone feels like they can't handle the burden of living out a life which is inherently subversive and difficult, I wouldn't deny them the right to conform even if doing so comes with its own challenges. I might even say the same for those with autogynephelia.
In the end I am just hoping we can all be supportive of capital L "Liberal" values. We should allow people to live how they please while safegaurding vulnerable populations and uplitfitng our societial standards for everyone's benefit.
You seem like your trying to do the right thing and improve the discourse on this issue, so I'd love to talk sometime if your intrested in hearing more of my perspective.
I agree that that society has changed somewhat, but we're nowhere near equality. I find the argument that having a more equal society has lead to a rise in transgender ideology interesting as I don't really understand it. Can you explain it?
To me, I would think that a relaxation in gender roles would lead to people believing that they can be gender nonconforming without thinking they are the opposite sex. Instead we seem to have moved to a position where if you prefer clothes or have hobbies that are gender nonconforming, you ARE the opposite sex not a girl who prefers wearing jeans and building treehouses.
Personally, I think people should be able to wear what they like (try not to scare the horses), call themselves whatever name they prefer, and have whatever hobbies they enjoy. Like camo or glitter or baking cakes or riding dirt bikes - whatever, but that does not change your biological sex and when people are naked or vulnerable, biological sex matters.
I agree that culturally and socially we are nowhere near equality which you can see in the examples I gave above. This leads to people feeling alienated and deciding to transition in order to better fit within societal expectations for men and women.
When you talk about the increased equality in western countries as a push factor, things get more complicated. I think a lot of men, who might not have been very feminine growing up, now look up to women in a way that they might not have in a more patriarchal society. I think these men envy women’s power over male sexuality, they envy women’s reproductive facilities, they envy the perceived dionysian qualities of a female experience. I think this modern phenomenon is only possible because of the greater legal and institutional equality women have won in the 21st century. Unfortunately though, I think it might play a factor in the increase of agp.
When it comes to the push factors for women, there are some which have nothing to do with greater equality. For example, the popularization of the trans/nonbinary aesthetic amongst young women, is more common in the west due to social media and western “l”iberalism. Another example is the drive away from the dionysian as a result of the resurgence of conservative parenting. (Young people do not want to be seen as sexual creatures).
However, I would still argue that there are some unique push factors which are due to a greater equality between men and women. Nowadays, it is much more encouraged for women to pursue traditionally masculine roles. I think this simple encouragement may be enough for women who already envy men to be enthralled with the possibility of becoming more physically and emotionally resilient. Furthermore, the modern day dual responsibilities towards family and career might be daunting for some women. I think this along with the non equality related push factors might be driving straight women to romanticize male homosexual identities. (More sexual freedom and less responcibility).
Finally, there are some factors which I do not believe will go away regardless of how accepting modern society becomes. I think that people who naturally gravitate towards opposite sex behaviors, (behaviors that are biologically more common in one sex), will always feel alienated. I also think that some people will just prefer to live life with the physical ramifications of opposite sex hormones. If you imagine a future world where people can switch sex at the push of a button, I myself might choose to do so, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
You mentioned the belief amongst young people today that by virtue of performing opposite gender behaviors, they “are” the opposite sex. I think this is more of a philosophical belief that is downstream from whatever push factors caused them to become “gender questioning” in the first place. I don't think you should put too much thought or care in trying to debunk or reason with these types of statements. What it means to be a Man or a Woman is inherently vacuous in some respects. I think people who have studied linguistics or linguistic anthropology can understand the meaninglessness of asking “What is a Woman?” (Honestly I think the best solution to these types of problems might be the gender/sex aboltionism championed by third wave femenism and a continued investigation into the medical interventions we can make to counteract biological essentialism.)
When it comes to the importance of “biological sex.” I agree with you that it is important to safeguard vulnerable people, but I think it's largely a red herring and does more harm than good, (suggests men or “TestOstERonE” is inherently predatory towards women). I think that in the vast majority of these cases, whatever harassment or abuse takes place is already illegal and unambiguously unacceptable. I think the trans sports thing is kind of egregious when it comes to some highschool and college athletes, but the whole bathroom thing just seems like pearl clutching imo.
Anyways, I think you’ve encouraged me to make my opinions a bit more thought out, so thanks for staying curious! I hope this will help you understand what I meant before, but if not, I wouldn't mind trying again.🙃
I have a hard time understanding how psychotherapy is falsifiable, especially in the wake of so many people who are therapized into believing that 2+2=5.
Not to mention all the therapists who so readily jump onboard the crazy train of terrible ideas…gender ideology, multiple personality disorder, repressed memories, etc.
Psychotherapy outcome research evaluates people for levels of symptoms and distress before and after treatment. The investigators are looking for improvement or not on these measures, relative to other treatments (such as drugs or "therapy as usual"). Significant positive effect sizes are consistently found across all mainstream therapies (not including "critical theory," or other crackpot ideas).
I have a theory that these men are regressing to a stage of development in which their subconscious wants a do-over, as something happened. I wonder why they are so repelled by whatever their concept/feeling of masculinity is? I always felt my crossdressing former husband (I know Dr. Burgo has my book in which I describe the unraveling of our marriage) was acting out against his mother who didn't protect him from his father's beatings. He was physically abused at a young age, had 2 younger sisters and a much younger brother. None of this was "the issue" according to him, when he got is 1 appt. diagnosis from a "specialist" who had a team of non-certified "therapists" working "in her supervision." The thing is, these men are absolutely not "feeling female" as they actually have no idea what feeling female is. You know you are a woman when you don't get your period, or you do, but didn't want either of those states to be your present one. Or you got your period on time, but on the second day you had dangerous flow through bleeding and ruined a mattress. You found out that it was due to a fibroid the size of your fist growing in your uterus. Your gynecologist said surgery is the only choice, because this could kill you. I'm sure men have similar scares and dilemmas. But they cannot "become a woman" or actually "have a female" anything. I do wonder if cognitive behavior therapy to move towards more productive, responsible behavior with a focus on helping others might be an appropriate approach. These men put their wives at risk for STDs, cause disaster for the family budget and are obsessed with themselves. We ex-wives have no intention of wringing our hands over them. as we end up raising, paying for and taking care of the children they fathered.
They need cognitive therapy for sure. Today's men have much weaker masculinization than men of 100 years ago due to endocrine disruptors flooding the environment, foods, and it's not only chemicals, it's the artificial light, the electromagnetic fields, the sleep deprivation also that disrupt sexual hormones and cognitive functions. These effects accumulate from generation to generation.
Joe, our work and thoughts are so similar. I do wonder, though, if just as "nothing in the mind ever goes away...," you don't need to/can't throw out the narcissism/AGP hypothesis. Isn't shame at the root of all Cluster B? Aren't narcissistic grandiosity and self centeredness the unhealthy manifestation of and unsuccessful escape from unexplored/unresolved stresses of life and perceived inability to measure up in one way or another? Maybe a deeply explorative therapist like you helps one vulnerable to personality disorders avoid the abuses and distortions of self and others by true acceptance of oneself and reality (as opposed to the current insistence on "affirmation").
It may not occur to you but a therapist involvement may be part of the fantasy system, and revelations of "shameful" behavior is part of the fantasy activity. It's quite common in trans fantasy pornography to furnish the back story with a psychiatrist, equivalent to lipstick and garters, the psychiatrist who agrees the person is a girl.
What is your purpose? To help the man extirpate shame? Shame stimulates the behavior, it won't go away.
To say it's all ok? To celebrate the mysogyny? To help them stop? They won't stop any more than a rubber man will stop wearing rubber. To research the condition? They are instrumental to you?
I've had a lot of sex in my life, and occasionally I'd hook up with narcissistic masochist who revel in shame and abuse... It starts slowly, teasingly, putting me in role initially of "the adult" with advice. There's the day it escalates, revelations more concerning. Then you're perhaps only barrier between them and their being crushed by the world. And then you meet the others. Revaluations of abuse - of others.
The evidence for outcomes of psychotherapy tells us that all mainstream therapies are effective at about the same rate. Cognitive behavioral therapy was thought at one point to be superior to other therapies because there was a larger body of research on it. This is due mostly to the fact that CBT grew out of American academic psychology, and most research on psychotherapy is performed in academic settings. A host of new "brand name" therapies have been touted as vastly superior to any other methods, but their superiority tends to wash out with replication of research using relatively unbiased investigators.
Most psychotherapy outcome research has involved relatively short term treatments (weeks or a few months), and short term follow up of results. There is a small body of research showing that client outcomes following longer term psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapy continue to improve following the end of therapy. This may or may not be true of other approaches.
It is noteworthy that therapists tend to choose psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapists for themselves, even if their own theoretical orientation is different.
If mainstream therapies are effective at the same rate, it would mean that they are placebos? Mental health needs to be approached from different angles. Social workers, dieticians, physiotherapists, toxicologists, allergists, personal trainers, religious preachers etc. can all help improve mental health.
If mainstream therapies are effective at the same rate, it means that the treatment effect is from "common factors" in the therapies, not in their differences. Also, a "placebo" in psychological terms, is "hope" or more technically, "positive expectation." It does not mean "fake effect" as the term is sometimes interpreted. Hopelessness is actually a symptom of depression, so if the therapy process has rallied some hope, one of the symptoms of depression has remitted. Again, as I stated above, the treatment effect is measured by pre-and post-treatment measures of the symptoms of the disorder, with additional follow up. In research protocols participants usually consist of people who are not involved in other treatments at the same time. In natural settings people may or may not engage in various other personal growth programs or medical treatments. One of the goals of most courses of psychotherapy is to increase the person's involvement in life.
"[T]he scientific method represents only one way of knowing"
There's knowing, but then there's the equally-important transmission of what is (still-allegedly) known to a skeptical audience, i.e. the function of proofs. One purpose of scientific method is this transmission. IMO, transmission completely falls on its face in most cases in revealed religions. And yes, it also happens with unnerving frequency with much that passes for knowledge in multiple types of psychotherapy.
I've suffered enough psychodynamic "therapy" (from multiple practitioners, individual and group) to, well... know -- and, know in your sense -- that it doesn't know what it doesn't know (about, e.g, the mind functions of certain kinds of neuro-atypicals), and, without that missing knowledge, it *also* doesn't know what it professes to learn after sufficient "interaction" (the process you describe above). In my experience, everything is always a ramming of the "client" through the funnel of a set of supposed human universals learned in the academy, by hook or by crook. For years if needed ("Don't worry, we have plenty of [therapist clock] time!"). Unless things have *radically* changed in the last five years vs the previous forty, I'm hard-pressed to understand how I'm wrong here. Hope that helps.
Masturbation (especially to porn) can do that, but dopamine agonists like cocaine as well. In sex addictions and paraphilias like autogynephilia, sexual arousal to the usual cue (opposite sex) goes through a process of tolerance where it diminishes and reattaches to the uncommon, new cue, the woman fantasy in the case of autogynephilia. It's a process similar to drug addiction and tolerance. Stress fuels it. See this recount from 100 years ago:
"In my imagination I let the doors open to allow in an extraordinarily beautiful woman to whom I first spoke (without having true auditory hallucinations; I had only visual and somatic hallucinations); I then undressed her, and finally had intercourse with her. During this repeated imaginary coitus I could vividly feel my penis entering the vagina and had a sensation of voluptuous pleasure in the loins and penis. This happened 30 times in one night although, of course, without ejaculation. My heart rate, already accelerated, would go up to 140 per minute after each imaginary coitus. At the same time, I would look at pictures and postcards and was able, at will, to enlarge the individuals represented in them, to identify them as friends or simple acquaintances, to have intercourse with them, or to make them have intercourse with each other. My hallucinations at that time never had a perverted content. As my states of cocaine intoxication became more frequent, my hallucinations became more limited to the sexual area, until one fine day the perversions also made their appearance.
The feelings of voluptuousness became weaker and weaker, and the images followed each other more quickly than at the beginning. The sexual perversions finally reached such proportions that from then on I was able to see myself as a woman. I would see myself quite willingly as a prostitute having intercourse with several men at the same time, and I dreamed of nothing but sodomy, masochism and sadism"
Porn addiction is a nonexistent condition, utterly lacking any scientific evidence supporting it.
Would we also find he sufferers of Romance Novel addiction? Between Barbara Carland, Danelle Steele, and Nora Roberts, you could read sexual dalliiance novels 40 hours a week for 10 years and still not exhaust the genre, after doling out 10's of thousands of dollars.
Oh! The Dopamine Rush of Heathcliff! Take me away!
Sex addiction is not in the DSM, but DSM just reflects the consensus of the moment. It will enter the DSM If and when the scientists who think sex addictiom exists will become a majority. Science is built from the bottom up, so not being in the majority does not mean that one should stop thinking the way they do, it just means that they have to do more to prove it or that those who think otherwise have vested interests in doing so. There is plenty of research on sex addiction on pubmed. There are millions of people who are striving to stop masturbation (see Reddit).
Using that logic TV addiction is much, much more powerful. Porn addiction by some measures is watching more than 3 hours a week. Shattering! It’s people disliking porn searching for a reason to say it’s bad for others. Birdwatching is Bird addiction. Binge watching TV is TV addiction.
Junk science. Science is excellent at generating risible hypotheses and later abandoning them. Just part of the process.
Masturbation was a dangerous, debilitating process in the 19th century up to the 50’s
Im pretty sure porn is nothing like cocaine, its a myth that people need to watch more and more extreme porn. I'm sure your probably over 30 and haven't had to do anything more kinky than 69 in the past 10 years. "Porn Addiction" is another myth, its a completely behavioral phenomena with the only diagnosis criteria being the extent to which it hinders your every day functioning. Its not like heroine where there is a marked change in physiological response. Hope this helped, get well soon <3
Suicide is a behavioral phenomena, so? Sex addiction hinders reproduction just like blocked fallopian tubes do. Why the latter should be a disorder but the former not? A lot of mental health professionals think that reproduction is of no concern, but if that's the case there should not exist fertility science, medications etc. at all.
The problem is that your whole framing of the issue of autogynephelia is based on a
completely r*trd*d comparison to physiological drug addiction which causes you to completely misunderstand the conidtion in a disugsting and perverse way.
Physiological drug addiction causes addicts to seek out higher and higher doses of the drug which in many cases leads to overdoses and other harmful sideffects; meanwhile, behavioral addictions like porn addiction, sex addiction, gambling addiction do not work this way. This is not to say that they shouldn't be seen as mental disorders, just that agp a behavioral disorder cannot be analyzed using the framework of a physiological addiction.
Why don't you stop pearl clutching for a few minutes and read a few studies about how porn and masturbation actually effect the brain. Maybe that will take you out of your emotional state so you can think about things more rationally. Anybody saying that mental health professionals don't care about reproduction is either emotionally self deluded, or clearly acting in bad faith.
This article about autogynephilia adds to a theory I have. The men are escaping from the demands of masculinity. And so many of the young transitioning women are escaping from the demands of femininity. Is transgenderism the result of our strict sex roles?
But do Western societies still have strict sex roles? I think that we have slowly been moving towards more equality between the sexes in the past few decades. Of course it's not perfect and we're no where near seen as equals. But if transgenderism is a response to strict sex roles, why has it only exploded in the past decade? While I think that it maybe the case that women and girls are opting out of what they see is their sex role from degrading and violent porn, I din't know if it's the same for trans identified males.
I think the movement we see is forced, performative, and against the inherent nature most of us have as men or women. Men restrain aggression, women restrain nurturing (to be stereotypical) but it ends up being a constant battle against our inner nature.
Our daughter has been caught in the trans cult and the only answer she can give us is that she doesn’t like being a woman. I get it.
FWIW, I wouldn’t want to be a woman if doing so meant I needed to simultaneously look like Heidi Klum, be a business mogul like Sheryl Sandberg, parent perfectly (and be judged on how perfect your kids are), etc. Because that’s the message that’s being communicated through all kinds of sources.
But with the progressive mindset, a young woman can be “trans” and therefore is freed from any responsibility to fit into any of those archetypes (let alone all of them). It must be a huge psychic weight lifted.
Agree. If you read posts in detrans forums on Reddit, you will see that a lot of female to male trans have mental health issues, and not only. They often have inflammatory conditions that disturb their sexual hormones.
Your viewpoint is so predictably myopic and reductive. It's an essay about a therapist helping men, and you can't help but comment on the uninque villany towards women represented by violent porn, which in fact caters more towards the tastes of women. I think your unimaginative, unempathetic, onedimensional views on the way patriarchy functions in society may be contributing to the strict sex rolls you seem to think have disapeared at the turn of the centruy. Maybe we should stop viewing women as perpetual victims and men as inherent predators. <3 get well soon!!!
Sex roles in the Western countries are nowhere as strict as in Eastern countries and Africa. And yet it is in Western countries that there are so many transgenders. Patriarchy is not the main reason behind trans identities.
From the strength of your reaction I'm obviously missing something. Of course I can never know what it's like to be a man and I'm on the outside looking in. Can you tell me more about how you see the current role of men in today's society and the demands of masculinity?
The men in my life seem to be freer from the responsibilities of being the sole breadwinner and can more freely express their emotions and nurturing sides than what I saw in previous generations. But I'm aware that is a limited sample.
I think you and diet-stress made an accurate observation that western societies today are more equitable than they were in the past. Unfortunately a lot of the culutal changes have only been superficial. It will take a long time to reduce the power of deeply ingrained stereotypes especially when many of them are probabilisticly connected to biology.
You might not realize this in your day to day life, but women are still overly sexualized in media and disproportionately marketed to by the beauty industy; women are still taught to be chaste and value virginity; and women still struggle to be seen as leaders as exemplified by Kamala Harris in the U.S.. Meanwhile, men are still expected to outearn their partners in heterosexual relationships; men still don't cry and overwhelmingly suffer from alexithymia; and men still feel victimized by asinine femenist rhetoric which essentializes them as perverse, selfish agressors.
"Conversely", (in the prop logic deffinition of the word), I think the disporportionate increase in trans identified people in the west is partially due to the greater equality in of itself. While in the past it was obvious that women were legally and socially second class citizens, I believe that women's place in society has risen to the extent that a logical person might have good reason to become a man or a woman, depending on their intrests and predilictions.
Following this line of reasoning, I have special empathy for young people with same sex attraction. Biologically, homosexuality will never be normal in the literal sense. If someone feels like they can't handle the burden of living out a life which is inherently subversive and difficult, I wouldn't deny them the right to conform even if doing so comes with its own challenges. I might even say the same for those with autogynephelia.
In the end I am just hoping we can all be supportive of capital L "Liberal" values. We should allow people to live how they please while safegaurding vulnerable populations and uplitfitng our societial standards for everyone's benefit.
You seem like your trying to do the right thing and improve the discourse on this issue, so I'd love to talk sometime if your intrested in hearing more of my perspective.
I agree that that society has changed somewhat, but we're nowhere near equality. I find the argument that having a more equal society has lead to a rise in transgender ideology interesting as I don't really understand it. Can you explain it?
To me, I would think that a relaxation in gender roles would lead to people believing that they can be gender nonconforming without thinking they are the opposite sex. Instead we seem to have moved to a position where if you prefer clothes or have hobbies that are gender nonconforming, you ARE the opposite sex not a girl who prefers wearing jeans and building treehouses.
Personally, I think people should be able to wear what they like (try not to scare the horses), call themselves whatever name they prefer, and have whatever hobbies they enjoy. Like camo or glitter or baking cakes or riding dirt bikes - whatever, but that does not change your biological sex and when people are naked or vulnerable, biological sex matters.
I agree that culturally and socially we are nowhere near equality which you can see in the examples I gave above. This leads to people feeling alienated and deciding to transition in order to better fit within societal expectations for men and women.
When you talk about the increased equality in western countries as a push factor, things get more complicated. I think a lot of men, who might not have been very feminine growing up, now look up to women in a way that they might not have in a more patriarchal society. I think these men envy women’s power over male sexuality, they envy women’s reproductive facilities, they envy the perceived dionysian qualities of a female experience. I think this modern phenomenon is only possible because of the greater legal and institutional equality women have won in the 21st century. Unfortunately though, I think it might play a factor in the increase of agp.
When it comes to the push factors for women, there are some which have nothing to do with greater equality. For example, the popularization of the trans/nonbinary aesthetic amongst young women, is more common in the west due to social media and western “l”iberalism. Another example is the drive away from the dionysian as a result of the resurgence of conservative parenting. (Young people do not want to be seen as sexual creatures).
However, I would still argue that there are some unique push factors which are due to a greater equality between men and women. Nowadays, it is much more encouraged for women to pursue traditionally masculine roles. I think this simple encouragement may be enough for women who already envy men to be enthralled with the possibility of becoming more physically and emotionally resilient. Furthermore, the modern day dual responsibilities towards family and career might be daunting for some women. I think this along with the non equality related push factors might be driving straight women to romanticize male homosexual identities. (More sexual freedom and less responcibility).
Finally, there are some factors which I do not believe will go away regardless of how accepting modern society becomes. I think that people who naturally gravitate towards opposite sex behaviors, (behaviors that are biologically more common in one sex), will always feel alienated. I also think that some people will just prefer to live life with the physical ramifications of opposite sex hormones. If you imagine a future world where people can switch sex at the push of a button, I myself might choose to do so, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
You mentioned the belief amongst young people today that by virtue of performing opposite gender behaviors, they “are” the opposite sex. I think this is more of a philosophical belief that is downstream from whatever push factors caused them to become “gender questioning” in the first place. I don't think you should put too much thought or care in trying to debunk or reason with these types of statements. What it means to be a Man or a Woman is inherently vacuous in some respects. I think people who have studied linguistics or linguistic anthropology can understand the meaninglessness of asking “What is a Woman?” (Honestly I think the best solution to these types of problems might be the gender/sex aboltionism championed by third wave femenism and a continued investigation into the medical interventions we can make to counteract biological essentialism.)
When it comes to the importance of “biological sex.” I agree with you that it is important to safeguard vulnerable people, but I think it's largely a red herring and does more harm than good, (suggests men or “TestOstERonE” is inherently predatory towards women). I think that in the vast majority of these cases, whatever harassment or abuse takes place is already illegal and unambiguously unacceptable. I think the trans sports thing is kind of egregious when it comes to some highschool and college athletes, but the whole bathroom thing just seems like pearl clutching imo.
Anyways, I think you’ve encouraged me to make my opinions a bit more thought out, so thanks for staying curious! I hope this will help you understand what I meant before, but if not, I wouldn't mind trying again.🙃
I have a hard time understanding how psychotherapy is falsifiable, especially in the wake of so many people who are therapized into believing that 2+2=5.
Not to mention all the therapists who so readily jump onboard the crazy train of terrible ideas…gender ideology, multiple personality disorder, repressed memories, etc.
If psychotherapy can make people believe 2+2=5, it has the power to make them believe 2+2=4, so it works.
It's not hard to get patients to agree with zeitgeist.
Psychotherapy outcome research evaluates people for levels of symptoms and distress before and after treatment. The investigators are looking for improvement or not on these measures, relative to other treatments (such as drugs or "therapy as usual"). Significant positive effect sizes are consistently found across all mainstream therapies (not including "critical theory," or other crackpot ideas).
I have a theory that these men are regressing to a stage of development in which their subconscious wants a do-over, as something happened. I wonder why they are so repelled by whatever their concept/feeling of masculinity is? I always felt my crossdressing former husband (I know Dr. Burgo has my book in which I describe the unraveling of our marriage) was acting out against his mother who didn't protect him from his father's beatings. He was physically abused at a young age, had 2 younger sisters and a much younger brother. None of this was "the issue" according to him, when he got is 1 appt. diagnosis from a "specialist" who had a team of non-certified "therapists" working "in her supervision." The thing is, these men are absolutely not "feeling female" as they actually have no idea what feeling female is. You know you are a woman when you don't get your period, or you do, but didn't want either of those states to be your present one. Or you got your period on time, but on the second day you had dangerous flow through bleeding and ruined a mattress. You found out that it was due to a fibroid the size of your fist growing in your uterus. Your gynecologist said surgery is the only choice, because this could kill you. I'm sure men have similar scares and dilemmas. But they cannot "become a woman" or actually "have a female" anything. I do wonder if cognitive behavior therapy to move towards more productive, responsible behavior with a focus on helping others might be an appropriate approach. These men put their wives at risk for STDs, cause disaster for the family budget and are obsessed with themselves. We ex-wives have no intention of wringing our hands over them. as we end up raising, paying for and taking care of the children they fathered.
They need cognitive therapy for sure. Today's men have much weaker masculinization than men of 100 years ago due to endocrine disruptors flooding the environment, foods, and it's not only chemicals, it's the artificial light, the electromagnetic fields, the sleep deprivation also that disrupt sexual hormones and cognitive functions. These effects accumulate from generation to generation.
Joe, our work and thoughts are so similar. I do wonder, though, if just as "nothing in the mind ever goes away...," you don't need to/can't throw out the narcissism/AGP hypothesis. Isn't shame at the root of all Cluster B? Aren't narcissistic grandiosity and self centeredness the unhealthy manifestation of and unsuccessful escape from unexplored/unresolved stresses of life and perceived inability to measure up in one way or another? Maybe a deeply explorative therapist like you helps one vulnerable to personality disorders avoid the abuses and distortions of self and others by true acceptance of oneself and reality (as opposed to the current insistence on "affirmation").
It may not occur to you but a therapist involvement may be part of the fantasy system, and revelations of "shameful" behavior is part of the fantasy activity. It's quite common in trans fantasy pornography to furnish the back story with a psychiatrist, equivalent to lipstick and garters, the psychiatrist who agrees the person is a girl.
What is your purpose? To help the man extirpate shame? Shame stimulates the behavior, it won't go away.
To say it's all ok? To celebrate the mysogyny? To help them stop? They won't stop any more than a rubber man will stop wearing rubber. To research the condition? They are instrumental to you?
I've had a lot of sex in my life, and occasionally I'd hook up with narcissistic masochist who revel in shame and abuse... It starts slowly, teasingly, putting me in role initially of "the adult" with advice. There's the day it escalates, revelations more concerning. Then you're perhaps only barrier between them and their being crushed by the world. And then you meet the others. Revaluations of abuse - of others.
I could write books about men in France...
I'm not sure of the writing...
"They won't stop..." There are rehabilitation centers that help.
“psychotherapy involves its own kind of scientific method”
Yeah. No.
The evidence for outcomes of psychotherapy tells us that all mainstream therapies are effective at about the same rate. Cognitive behavioral therapy was thought at one point to be superior to other therapies because there was a larger body of research on it. This is due mostly to the fact that CBT grew out of American academic psychology, and most research on psychotherapy is performed in academic settings. A host of new "brand name" therapies have been touted as vastly superior to any other methods, but their superiority tends to wash out with replication of research using relatively unbiased investigators.
Most psychotherapy outcome research has involved relatively short term treatments (weeks or a few months), and short term follow up of results. There is a small body of research showing that client outcomes following longer term psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapy continue to improve following the end of therapy. This may or may not be true of other approaches.
It is noteworthy that therapists tend to choose psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapists for themselves, even if their own theoretical orientation is different.
If mainstream therapies are effective at the same rate, it would mean that they are placebos? Mental health needs to be approached from different angles. Social workers, dieticians, physiotherapists, toxicologists, allergists, personal trainers, religious preachers etc. can all help improve mental health.
If mainstream therapies are effective at the same rate, it means that the treatment effect is from "common factors" in the therapies, not in their differences. Also, a "placebo" in psychological terms, is "hope" or more technically, "positive expectation." It does not mean "fake effect" as the term is sometimes interpreted. Hopelessness is actually a symptom of depression, so if the therapy process has rallied some hope, one of the symptoms of depression has remitted. Again, as I stated above, the treatment effect is measured by pre-and post-treatment measures of the symptoms of the disorder, with additional follow up. In research protocols participants usually consist of people who are not involved in other treatments at the same time. In natural settings people may or may not engage in various other personal growth programs or medical treatments. One of the goals of most courses of psychotherapy is to increase the person's involvement in life.
"[T]he scientific method represents only one way of knowing"
There's knowing, but then there's the equally-important transmission of what is (still-allegedly) known to a skeptical audience, i.e. the function of proofs. One purpose of scientific method is this transmission. IMO, transmission completely falls on its face in most cases in revealed religions. And yes, it also happens with unnerving frequency with much that passes for knowledge in multiple types of psychotherapy.
I've suffered enough psychodynamic "therapy" (from multiple practitioners, individual and group) to, well... know -- and, know in your sense -- that it doesn't know what it doesn't know (about, e.g, the mind functions of certain kinds of neuro-atypicals), and, without that missing knowledge, it *also* doesn't know what it professes to learn after sufficient "interaction" (the process you describe above). In my experience, everything is always a ramming of the "client" through the funnel of a set of supposed human universals learned in the academy, by hook or by crook. For years if needed ("Don't worry, we have plenty of [therapist clock] time!"). Unless things have *radically* changed in the last five years vs the previous forty, I'm hard-pressed to understand how I'm wrong here. Hope that helps.
Masturbation (especially to porn) can do that, but dopamine agonists like cocaine as well. In sex addictions and paraphilias like autogynephilia, sexual arousal to the usual cue (opposite sex) goes through a process of tolerance where it diminishes and reattaches to the uncommon, new cue, the woman fantasy in the case of autogynephilia. It's a process similar to drug addiction and tolerance. Stress fuels it. See this recount from 100 years ago:
"In my imagination I let the doors open to allow in an extraordinarily beautiful woman to whom I first spoke (without having true auditory hallucinations; I had only visual and somatic hallucinations); I then undressed her, and finally had intercourse with her. During this repeated imaginary coitus I could vividly feel my penis entering the vagina and had a sensation of voluptuous pleasure in the loins and penis. This happened 30 times in one night although, of course, without ejaculation. My heart rate, already accelerated, would go up to 140 per minute after each imaginary coitus. At the same time, I would look at pictures and postcards and was able, at will, to enlarge the individuals represented in them, to identify them as friends or simple acquaintances, to have intercourse with them, or to make them have intercourse with each other. My hallucinations at that time never had a perverted content. As my states of cocaine intoxication became more frequent, my hallucinations became more limited to the sexual area, until one fine day the perversions also made their appearance.
The feelings of voluptuousness became weaker and weaker, and the images followed each other more quickly than at the beginning. The sexual perversions finally reached such proportions that from then on I was able to see myself as a woman. I would see myself quite willingly as a prostitute having intercourse with several men at the same time, and I dreamed of nothing but sodomy, masochism and sadism"
Porn addiction is a nonexistent condition, utterly lacking any scientific evidence supporting it.
Would we also find he sufferers of Romance Novel addiction? Between Barbara Carland, Danelle Steele, and Nora Roberts, you could read sexual dalliiance novels 40 hours a week for 10 years and still not exhaust the genre, after doling out 10's of thousands of dollars.
Oh! The Dopamine Rush of Heathcliff! Take me away!
Sex addiction is not in the DSM, but DSM just reflects the consensus of the moment. It will enter the DSM If and when the scientists who think sex addictiom exists will become a majority. Science is built from the bottom up, so not being in the majority does not mean that one should stop thinking the way they do, it just means that they have to do more to prove it or that those who think otherwise have vested interests in doing so. There is plenty of research on sex addiction on pubmed. There are millions of people who are striving to stop masturbation (see Reddit).
Using that logic TV addiction is much, much more powerful. Porn addiction by some measures is watching more than 3 hours a week. Shattering! It’s people disliking porn searching for a reason to say it’s bad for others. Birdwatching is Bird addiction. Binge watching TV is TV addiction.
Junk science. Science is excellent at generating risible hypotheses and later abandoning them. Just part of the process.
Masturbation was a dangerous, debilitating process in the 19th century up to the 50’s
More of the same bullshit.
Im pretty sure porn is nothing like cocaine, its a myth that people need to watch more and more extreme porn. I'm sure your probably over 30 and haven't had to do anything more kinky than 69 in the past 10 years. "Porn Addiction" is another myth, its a completely behavioral phenomena with the only diagnosis criteria being the extent to which it hinders your every day functioning. Its not like heroine where there is a marked change in physiological response. Hope this helped, get well soon <3
Suicide is a behavioral phenomena, so? Sex addiction hinders reproduction just like blocked fallopian tubes do. Why the latter should be a disorder but the former not? A lot of mental health professionals think that reproduction is of no concern, but if that's the case there should not exist fertility science, medications etc. at all.
The problem is that your whole framing of the issue of autogynephelia is based on a
completely r*trd*d comparison to physiological drug addiction which causes you to completely misunderstand the conidtion in a disugsting and perverse way.
Physiological drug addiction causes addicts to seek out higher and higher doses of the drug which in many cases leads to overdoses and other harmful sideffects; meanwhile, behavioral addictions like porn addiction, sex addiction, gambling addiction do not work this way. This is not to say that they shouldn't be seen as mental disorders, just that agp a behavioral disorder cannot be analyzed using the framework of a physiological addiction.
Why don't you stop pearl clutching for a few minutes and read a few studies about how porn and masturbation actually effect the brain. Maybe that will take you out of your emotional state so you can think about things more rationally. Anybody saying that mental health professionals don't care about reproduction is either emotionally self deluded, or clearly acting in bad faith.
I analyze AGP using the laws of conditioning theories, which apply to behaviors in general.