Incels, Crossdreamers and Transgender Women

Natalie Wynn, also known as ContraPoints, has posted an interesting video about the relationship between incel culture and the way some crossdreamers and transgender people experience their lives.

Natalie Wynn, AKA ContraPoints

Unless you have been living under a cosy and warm rock for the last few years, you will know that incels, or "involuntary celibates", represents a sub-culture of seriously depressed and self-loathing men who think they are  inevitable losers in the game of love.

They think of themselves  as unattractive and pathetic "betas" who cannot beat the alpha-males regardless of much they try.

This is mostly because feminism has given women too much power, they say. The women can now go for the alpha-males, all the time. And if a woman does marry a "loser," she will always cheat on him with the mentioned alpha "Chad".

The return of skull measurements

All of this despair is sometimes mixed up with a pseudo-scientific philosophy based on old-fashioned phrenology and eugenics, where the shape of your skull tells you whether you are a winner or not.

The idea is that women are attracted to hypermasculine men with hypermasculine skulls. This understanding is based, I  suppose, on quasi-Darwinistic theories where masculine looks signal that the man is a protector with good genes. You know, in the way the male with the biggest tail is the coolest dude on the block in the world of peacocks.

This leads to a psychological no-win situation for those who believe they have a feminine, weak, skull. If this is the case, there seems to be literally nothing you can do to find true love and happiness. Your inferiority is inborn. End of story.

Crossdreamer Summer Break

I had great plans about publishing the first post in a new series on the archetypes and dreams of feminization, but I must admit that there is not enough time this side of the summer.

I pride myself in writing blog posts based on research and thorough analysis and that takes time. So instead of beating myself up with not being able to go on as planned, I am going to take a small summer vacation. I'll be back with new posts in the second part of July at the very latest.

In the meantime, I'll try and keep up with the comments.

I have to be frank with you: Writing this blog takes it toll. It may seem academic and intellectual to some of you, but I am constantly challenging my own being and my own self understanding, and that stirs up all kinds of feelings: longing and depression, excitement and despair. This never gets boring, that's for sure!

This is why I am so glad to have active readers commenting and contributing to the discussion. That helps me a lot!

Here are my plans for the fall. If there are any other topics you would like for me to look into, add a comment!

Archetypes and feminization fantasies

Far too often the feminization fantasies of crossdreamers are dismissed as mere fetishes or perversions. Few try to explain why crossdreamers (or "autogynephiliacs" as Blanchards calls men who dream about having a woman's body) have exactly these kinds of fantasies.

I feel great admiration for Carl Gustav Jung and his explorations of the human subconscious, and I believe he has a model and a typology that might help us understand why crossdreamers crossdream the way they do.

I believe the content of these fantasies is the way the subconscious is trying to make sense out of deeper instincts and drives. It is time for an exploration of transgender dreams and archetypes, as they are found in TG fiction, myths and fairytales.

What genetic XX women dream about

The easy dismissal of crossdreamer fantasies as male perversions, is often based on the idea that XX women do not have similar fantasies. Here is the idea -- even half a century after Kinsey and 100 years after Freud -- that women are pure and untainted of kinky erotic fantasies. Some transwomen have adapted this point of view and use it to attack crossdreamers and crossdressers: "Real women do not have such dreams!"

So what did I do? I bought several books with women's erotica: sexual fantasies written by XX women for other women.

I had a pretty good idea that there would be some overlap between these fantasies and the ones found in TG short stories and caps. The fact is that I found that all the major themes found in women's erotica can be found in the fantasies of crossdreamers. All of them!

It is true that most women do not get turned on by transformation fantasies, but then again, they already have the bodies M2F crossdreamers long for.

The quest for the holy grail of femininity

One of the most disturbing part of the online transdebates, is the idea that only transwomen who look and act like feminine women are really worthy of the term "woman".

Some transwomen attack other transwomen by publishing pictures of them online, "proving" once and for all that this person neither looks nor dresses like a woman, and should therefore not be accepted as such.

The fact that many crossdreamers strongly feel and believe that at least parts of them are woman-like, is dismissed with similar arguments. They neither look nor act like women. Whatever they feel inside is irrelevant. They are, at best, men in drag.

I want to look into this idea of passing as a sign of true womanhood, and see if it make as much sense as its proponents believe.

A possible new explanation for autogynephilia

I plan to go back to Blanchard and Bailey and look at their explanation for autogynephilia or crossdreaming.

Blanchard has two unproven theories: the target location error theory (where men internalize the proper love object: women), and the alternative sexuality theory (autogynephilia as a parallel to heterosexuality and homosexuality).

As an experiment I am going to take crossdreamers and transwomen at their word. I am going to see if some kind of true inner "womanness" can explain Blanchard and Bailey's findings. In short: I will see if there is a simpler and more elegant model that can explain the same observations.

How other cultures integrate transpeople

I know I promised you this last fall, but I am going to write about how other cultures treat transpeople. I believe we take far too much for granted as regards our understanding of what is masculine and feminine, and what is the proper behavior of the two genders.

If we can find cultures who have treated transpeople differently, we have also proven that the present rules for proper behavior are not self evident.

I am going to make several approaches:

The first one is to look at pre-patriarchal society. That is a fancy word for the cultural environment found in the Middle East and Europe some five to six thousands years ago, before warriors from Central Asia invaded the area and introduced religions with male war gods at the top. Before that time, religious and culture life was dominated by the mother goddess.

She might not have been as peace loving as some feminists believe, but it is certainly true that cultures like the Minoan one had the deepest respect for women and their role in society. The focus on growth instead of war made a huge difference in the way they understood and appreciated the feminine.

Even after the goddess was dethroned as the leading deity she lived on as a strong player in Sumeria, Egypt, Greece and Rome. I will take a look at the cult of Inanna in Sumeria and the cult of Cybele in Rome. The priestesses of both cults were transwomen. I am also looking into the cult of Dionysus, which also have transgender component.

Given that the cult of the goddess grew out of shamanistic cultures, it will also make sense to see how recent hunter and gatherer cultures look at gender. Shamans ("witchdoctors") in many of these cultures crossed the gender divide, and several of the Native American tribes respected the "two spirited".

I may also look into European renaissance philosophy and see how they integrated the masculine and the feminine in their way of thinking.

Dreaming of shemales

Shemale is a derogatory term given by the porn industry to transgenderists and pre op transwomen, i.e. transwomen who for some reason or the other have kept their penis.

I am not going to go into the debate on whether it is OK for transwomen to keep some of their male parts. (As far as I am concerned they should be allowed to do whatever they please). I do not think shemales exist in real life, even if some of these transwomen are willing to play the part, in adult entertainment or as call girls.

No, what I plan to do is to look at shemales as an object of transgender erotic fantasies. Even if there are no shemales in real life, they do exist in transgender dreams and art. If we can explain why some biological men dream about such women, we might get closer to explanation of what crossdreaming is all about.

Harry Benjamin

I have reread Harry Benjamin's book from 1966: The Transsexual Phenomenon, a book that is still very influential and well worth a study. He continues to serve as an alternative to Blanchard and Bailey and their explanation for autogynephilia.

I must admit, though, that one of the reasons I went back to Benjamin, was a meeting with the "Harry Benjamin Syndrome", a theory invented by some extremist transwomen who desperately try to put some distance between themselves and people who are more likely to read this blog. They claim that Benjamin argued there was a fundamental difference between transwomen and "fetishistic" crossdressers, and that the two groups have nothing in common.

Benjamin definitely meant there was a difference, but not a fundamental one. Instead he argued very much in the way I have been doing: That there is some kind of continuum and that the two phenomena are related.

As you can understand I stick to my program of controversial openness. We have to talk about these things if we are to understand them and learn to accept and love ourselves and others.

For those on the Northern Hemisphere: Have a great summer! And to all you southerners in Latin America, Africa, South Asia and Oceania: have a great whatever you do!

On transgender embarrassment

Shame and embarrassment

This is a blog that boldly goes where even angels fear to thread. I have decided to cover controversial and "embarrassing" topics, simply because I believe that knowledge sets us free.

I also believe that ethics is not about following rules, regulations and inherited customs. Being a good person is about being able to love others and help them get a good life where they can be whoever Nature or God meant them to be.

This is not about whether women should be allowed to wear miniskirts or burkas or whether it is OK for a grown man to play with model trains. This is also why I believe we have to go into the fantasy life of crossdreamers in order to understand what makes us feel the way we do.

Kinky sex is OK

It is interesting to note that even if we live in a society where psychologists and psychiatrists consider a rich sexual fantasy life healthy and enriching, and where most forms of consensual sex are considered acceptable, crossdreamer fantasies continues to be problematic.

One of the reason the more militant "classical transsexuals" try to distance themselves from crossdressers is partly this: They do not want to be associated with men that get turned on by dressing up as women. They believe the very existence of "the transgendered" stigmatizes them as freaks. In order to avoid that stigmatization they would like crossdressers and crossdreamers to climb back into their closets and suffer in silence.

Stigmatized

This is of course exactly what society has told both gays and transsexual for ages. My old aunt used to say to me that she had nothing against gay people -- after all, uncle "Freddy" was clearly gay, and he was such a nice man who shared her love of orchids -- but why did they have to talk about it! It was embarrassing to talk about men doing unspeakable acts in polite conversations. 60 years of cultural conditioning had made an otherwise tolerant lady homophobic.

The post I wrote about the Norwegian politician Carl I. Hagen attacking his former son-in-law, now a woman, for causing his grandchildren pain by coming out as a transwoman is another example.

I believe Hagen when he says that he accepts that transwomen cannot be blamed for who they are and deserve our respect. But he is not willing to help change a society that makes the children of a transwoman despise "a man" that dresses up as a woman -- even if he acknowledges that this "man" is in fact a woman!

The sissy and the dominatrix

I got the following comment on one of my posts from a dominatrix who calls herself Eva Bliss:

"I found your blog after I googled the word autogynephilac to find the correct spelling before I placed the word in my blog. I am one of the only dominatrices who to my knowledge has had a long term fascination in understanding how autogynephilia affects her crossdressing clients . I have also made a few comments about the phenomena in my most recent post. I would value your comments and insight Jack/Jackie. I will look forward to your response here there or anywhere."

This is a blog that boldly goes where even angels fear to thread, so here is my response:

Although there is no one to one relationship between crossdreaming (getting turned on by feminization fantasies, ref. autogynephilia) and the desire of sexual submission, there are clearly quite a few crossdreamers who fantasize about submitting to a strong willed woman.

The idea of sissyfication, men being forcefully turned into women and made to submit to sex, is a recurrent theme in transgender erotica.

Some researchers have argued that the fact that many MTF crossdreamers harbor what they consider a masochistic kind of "paraphilia", proves that crossdreaming (referred to as "autogynephilia" by transphobes) is nothing but a perversion as well.

I doubt that this argument holds water. There are other explanations that make much more sense to me.

Imagine the following:

The MTF crossdreamer has a strong "feminine" side. They may not thrive in the traditional aggressive and assertive male role. This role goes against their inner nature.

They strongly believe, however, that society expects him to be a tough, assertive, sport loving and beer drinking womanizer, and they do their best to fulfill that role. They overcompensate. Indeed, many MTF crossdreamers appear in public life as successful alpha males having leading positions in companies and organisations.

Underneath that alpha male facade lives an "inner woman" who hates the whole game. The better they succeed male wise, the more she suffers. This gives them a deep sense of insecurity.

They have no way of expressing his feminine side in their role as a citizen, husband, father or lover. This frustration leads to a build up of both emotional and sexual energies that seek another outlet, and that outlet is normally secret feminization fantasies and/or cross-dressing.

So why would they seek out a dominatrix? Well, this is another secret space where they can live out their fantasies without being caught by colleagues, friends and family.

In this setting they can put aside their mask of masculinity, and let go. In this space they do not have to perform, succeed or live up to the expectations of them being an alpha male. In this room they can forget themselves, which gives them a huge emotional relief.

I do not think that this is about pain. But it is about humiliation. They feel, after all, a tremendous amount of guilt for having this feminine side, a guilt that is reinforced by the fact that they have to keep it secret from their friends and family.

In this role playing they are "punished" for their "sins" at the same time as they can give in to their longings. The punishment also gives emotional relief: In this fantasy they are forced into becoming a sissy. The game portrays them as a victim, not as a guilty perpetrator.

The fact that this is role playing is important. I do not think most crossdreamers actually believe that the two types of women this game presents are "real" in any sense of the word: the submissive slut versus the dominatrix. He would never treat his wife or girl-friend as a slave or a slaver. The crossdreamers who do transition, never live up this role in real life.

So this is an erotic fantasy and must be understood as a fantasy. Somehow their subconscious drives them to engage in this activity, because it satisfies a part of them that has been suppressed.

The role of the dominatrix may appear to be somewhat of a paradox. The stereotype of the sissy slut seems to indicate that the crossdreamers believe in a misogynistic view of women as weak and submissive. The dominatrix, however, represents the exact opposite: a woman in total control.

I do not think this is a paradox at all. Again: this is a fantasy, not real life, and in fantasies we simplify the complexity of life to get a grip on what is happening to us. In this fantasy the crossdreamer tries to leave room for one part of the complex human psyche that they believe is out of bounds for a "real man": the submissive, passive or reactive side.

This does not mean that they believe that all women are like this in real life, or that women ought to behave like this.

Secondly: The crossdreamer may have grown up with strong and dominant women near them (mothers, siters, aunts, grannies and nannies), women who have reinforced their fear of femininity in men. It is amazing to see how many women despise what they perceive as weakness in men. This especially applies to some of the strong willed women out there. The gender stereotypes are upheld by women, just as much as by men.

Thirdly: MTF crossdreamers engaging in sissy fantasies seem to be mostly gynephilic. They love women. They want to submit as a woman and they want to have sex with a woman. But the idea of having sex as a woman often entails the idea of being mounted and the desire for penetration. In this role playing the dominatrix takes the role of the dominant man. She may even let the client submit to anal sex, sealing the crossdreamer's role as a submissive woman. But the dominatrix remains a feminine woman, and the crossdreamer desire her as such.

This also applies to transfans or transsensuals, i.e. men who seek out pre-op MTF transwomen for domination games. They desire a woman who can make them feel like a woman. Hence: the common idea that the crossdreamer has to be a closeted gay man is wrong, as he often feels no attraction to the male body.

I must admit I have often wondered what would have happened if our cultures were more accepting towards men being emotional, nurturing, reactive, sensual and all the other traits we attribute to women.

I am amazed to see how male chauvinists, many radical feminists and the Pope seem to agree that there is one feminine essence that men do not take part in, in spite of the fact that all men and women clearly display different mixes of male and female traits. There are emotional and artistic men and there are assertive and politically powerful women, but we are led to believe that there exists a kind of blueprint for the perfect manly man that men should try to live up to.

That being said, I suspect that crossdreamers are as much caught up in their own prejudices as the culture surrounding them. In other words: they might find that their friends and girl friends may be more tolerant towards their feminine side than they imagine. When that happens, and they find other outlets for their feminine side, their desire for sissyfication and forced submission may subside.



UPDATE ON TERMINOLOGY

Since this blog post was written I have stopped using the terms "autogynephilia" and "autoandrophilia" to describe people. The reason for this is that the terms implicitly communicates an explanation for why some people get aroused by imagining themselves as the opposite sex . This explanation, that this is some kind of autoerotic paraphilia,  is both wrong and stigmatizing. Instead I use the neutral term "crossdreamers". This post has been updated with new pronouns.

Click here for a discussion of the dark side of the autogynephilia theory.

Cosmo: The sex life of crossdreamers

It will probably take some time before Cosmopolitan writes a "how to" guide on how to cope with a crossdreamer (men who fantasize about having a woman's body, also known as autogynephiliacs). But if the woman's magazine ever does, maybe they would write something like this.

Cosmopolitan June 2025.

My husband is a crossdreamer! How to keep your relationship thriving.

Your boyfriend tells you he is a crossdreamer. He gets turned on by imagining himself being a woman. In bed he wants to take your role. He may even want to borrow your lingerie. So now what do you do?

Know that there are good news as well as bad news.

From Venus and Mars

The good news is that you have found a man that worships you more than most men can do. He admires your looks, your wits and your ways to such an extent that he would like to be like you. Given all the misogynists out there, that is not a bad bargain.

The "inner woman" of a crossdreamer may also make him more sensitive. What some of them lack in testosterone driven masculinity they make up for in their love for you, your family and kids.

Fear and self loathing

The bad news is that he may be slightly traumatized. There are male pop stars and Hollywood actors coming out as metrosexuals and male lesbians, but in small towns a man having feminisation fantasies will still be considered a freak.

This means that he may also think that you consider him a pervert, whatever you tell him. His self-esteem may be low. The fact that crossdreaming was considered a "paraphilia" by the American medical establishment up until 2023 has not helped.

In order to keep your love he might try to hide his dreams. If he is a crossdresser he may hide his feminine clothing out of your sight. This may make him distant and withdrawn. His inner woman becomes your rival instead of your partner. If you want to make this relationship to work, it is therefore important that you help him bring his secret life out in the open.

Do the woman thing: talk about it! The man in him probably hates the idea, but his "inner woman" may become your best ally.

Is he a transsexual?

Many women who love crossdreamers harbor another fear: Is he a transsexual? What if he wants to have an operation? Then what do you do?

Note that the crossdreamers can be put into at least three overlapping groups.

The crossmopolitan identifies as a man, and has a good relationship with his own male body. He thrives in the traditional assertive male role as well as the more feminine caring role. For him his feminization fantasies are sexual spice and a way of getting in touch with his feminine side. He will feel no desire to transition for real.

The transsexual feels a strong gender incongruence. He -- or she, rather -- may have spent a lot of energy to suppress her dreams of becoming a woman, but the fact is that if she does not transition she will probably never find peace with herself. She has reached the tipping point where the sum of various genetic and hormonal causes of crossdreaming equals woman. She is a woman!

There are some relationships that survive a male to female transition, but the process will cost you a lot of suffering. It is a sad fact, but most relationships and marriages of this kind fail. You being bisexual might help, though.

The twilighter gets his name from the twilight zone in between the male identifying crossdreamer and the transsexual. He is in the problematic position of being both male and female in close to equal proportions. In our cultural context there is no role for the twin-spirited, and he may find it extremely hard to make peace with himself and the people around him.

Some of the twilighters become love-shy and introvert geeks, preferring their secret fantasies to the love of a real woman. It is not that they do not want your love. The fact is that they desperately long for it, but they find no way of conceptualizing what kind of life you and his inner woman can share. And if they do, they may imagine themselves as male lesbians. And you are probably not looking for a lesbian, are you?

He may still be a very good catch, though. When he understands that you understand him, his gratitude and love will lead him to make a tremendous effort to make the relationship work. He is very likely to be a faithful and committed husband. The trick is to find room for his inner woman. There are ways of doing that.

Is he gay?

The first suspicion that comes to mind when a girl realizes that her boyfriend and husband has a strong inner woman, is that he is gay. There are a lot of gay men with strong feminine sides. Some of them may even harbor feminisation fantasies and get turned on by crossdressing. Drag queens explore their inner woman in this way. Some of them do get married, although not as many as before, now that male homosexuality has become accepted.

Still, most male to female crossdreamers are actually gynephilic. They want to have sex with girls. Really! Check his web browser history. If you find a lot of pictures of sexy hunks, he is most likely gay. But if he is more into Penthouse and Playboy he is straight or bi.

Note however, that some gynephilic crossdreamers may have erotic fantasies about being banged by men. That could mean he is bisexual. But if the men of his fantasies are faceless, they may also be an expression of his desire to be the bottom in the sexual act, not a real sexual desire for the male body per se. He would rather have a woman penetrate him than a man, which is why some crossdreamers also get into "shemale" porn.

8 ways of making a crossdreaming sex life work

1. Make sure he understands your needs and desires. Some crossexuals have never spoken to anyone about their desires and have become pretty self-obsessed. This is an interesting paradox: In spite of the fact that he has a strong inner woman, he may lack the skills needed to interpret the dreams of a woman. Make sure that he understand that your "inner woman" is as important as his. Most crossdreamers can take the active role when having sex -- he owes you much more than that!

2. All right, so he is willing to please you. What can you do to please him? Take the active role! He will love you to be on top! He may fantasizing about you being the one inside him and not the other way round, but who cares as long as you get turned on together?

3. Talk dirty to his inner girl! That will shock him and delight her.

4. If he is a crossdresser, allow him to wear some lingerie. Borrow him some of yours if it fits. But if it makes you very uncomfortable, don't. Your needs are as important as his!

5. His inner woman may desire penetration. A finger up his anus may drive her wild. You will find that his ecstasy will turn you on as well. But demand proper hygiene!

6. If you are of the daring type, try out a strap-on. Pegging gives you full control and allows for his submission.

7. Most men, including many crossdreamers, do not fully get the bonding part of sex, i.e. that sex is just the natural culmination of friendship and love. Some crossdressers do, however. They would very much like to have a pajamas party for two with you doing girly things together -- like painting your toe nails and talk feelings. If you can live with him dressing up, that can work well. Again, tell him when you need him to be your man and not your girl friend!

8. Some crossdreamers would also like to make some body modifications. Shaving body hairs and electrolysis fit well into the crossdressing category. If you can live with his crossdressing, this should not be much of a burden. If he wants to take hormones, however, you need to have a looooong talk, and seek some counselling. Some wives can live with their man growing breasts. But he may also become non-functional as a man. Know also that if he wants to try out hormones there is a very good chance that he is a transwoman.

The ups and downs of a normal relationship

The relationships between a male crossdreamer and a woman are not that different from "regular" relationships. Or maybe there are no "regular" relationships. Given human diversity, they are all unique exercises in making love grow, and love requires patience, understanding, perseverance as well as a the kind of self-confidence and strong will that protects you from being exploited.

Crossdreamers may be traumatized from their struggle with their dreams and desires, especially if they have never felt acceptance for their secrets. That trauma may be healed by love, but it may also require professional help.

Go to My Husband is an Autogynephiliac for the story of Susanne and William, and their way of integrating crossdreaming into their love life.

If you have found ways of integrating crossdreaming  in your love life, please share it in a comment!

Autogynephilia as something normal

I have spent quite some time discussing the autogynephilia theory as it has been developed by people like Blanchard and Lawrence.

In short they believe men fantasizing about having a woman's body are displaying a kind of disorder, where their sexual energy is misplaced. Instead of loving a real woman, they love the idea of themselves as a woman.

Their writings present it all as something extraordinary. Since Blanchard's study was based on responses from clients visiting his clinic looking for sex reassignment surgery, he never looked into the possibility that this may be a rather common fantasy, shared even by people who cannot be called transsexuals (and who do not seek sex reassignment).

When your read the discussions on forums for transgender fantasies like Rachel's Haven and Feeling Femme Sanctuary the discussants range from transwomen who have transitioned, to men but who feel well at ease with their male identity and would not like to become women. They still fantasize about what it would feel like.

These are people who have found the forums, signed up and takes part in the discussion. But it is a fair guess that there must be a very large number that have never gotten that far. How many, we don't know, but I guess it is much larger than the specialists believe.

The British-Australian psychoterapist Tracie O'Keefe has a very interesting discussion of 10 cases from her own practice, all men and women who reports that they have fantasies of having the body of the opposite sex, "autogynephilia" for the men and "autoandrophilia" for the women.

She says:

"It seems likely in light of this study that "autogynephilia/androphilia" is far more common than current literature depicts. Far from being solely a psychopathology or paraphilia it is likely that many people experience "autogynephilia/androphilia" as part of their ordinary everyday sexual fantasy lives.

"For some of those people the experience gave them great pleasure, for some it was confusing and for others it is even disturbing; but what is clear is that each case is bound up with the person's own individual psychodynamics. Those psychodynamics are undoubtedly, as with every person, the results of the person as a whole self and should not be viewed purely in isolation."

Most of her respondents did not experience "gender dysphoria" (i.e. a gender identity disorder, where they feel that they are the wrong sex). Instead they used the fantasies to enrich their sex lives or to handle other psychological pressures.

She tells about the married couple Robert and Clair where the" autogynephilia" and "autoandrophilia" "seemed to be a dance of role reversal and power brokerage that in some ways stabilised a relationship where both partners could be very dynamic and forceful personalities."

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UPDATE ON TERMINOLOGY

Since this blog post was written I have stopped using the terms "autogynephilia" and "autoandrophilia" to describe people. The reason for this is that the terms implicitly communicates an explanation for why some people get aroused by imagining themselves as the opposite sex . This explanation, that this is some kind of autoerotic paraphilia,  is both wrong and stigmatizing. Instead I use the neutral term "crossdreamers".

Click here for a discussion of the dark side of the autogynephilia theory.

---

Then there is the man that has heavy responsibilities in his job, and that uses autogynephiliac fantasies to get a respite:

"In men fulfilling such subservient roles through autogynephilia it may mean giving up total control and being almost natal once again, having someone else make their decisions for them."

She makes some very good observations about how many in the Western tradition tend to sort sexual fantasies into "sinful" or "accepted" in the religious sphere or "pathological" or "healthy" in the medical arena.

"Blanchard's study was based on a strictly bipolar male/female paradigm to examine and explain human experience. To see the human condition and behaviour as only heterosexual, homosexual bisexual or asexual is unenlightened. People are sexual and clusters of sexual stimuli can be triggered by all manner of fantasies that would not be pathological except for narrow monocultural interpretations. In the case of Canada, to a large extent, it would have included a Judeo/Christian element that historically saw only heterosexual males as healthy men."

But what do we know about people's fantasies and sexual desires, really?

An MTF erotic crossdreamers ("autogynephiliac") may think that other people are "normal", dreaming of having normal sex in the missionary position (after the required bonding through foreplay, of course). His girlfriend may actually be dreaming about being taken roughly from behind up against the wall. Not that she would like all sex to be like that, but her sexuality is probably not as "pure" as some would like us to believe.

The enormous amount of porn online, and the great variety of topics we find there should tell us something about the variety of sexual imagination.

It would help if we could stop looking at sexual desires and fantasies as "sins" or "perversions", and instead look at them as what they really are: variations of the strange and fantastic world of human sexuality.

Sin is about hate and hurting other people, not about gender roles.

Do read O'Keefe's paper: Autogynephilia and Autoandrophilia in
Non-Sex and Gender Dysphoric Persons!

See also: What the sexual fantasies of non-transgender people tells us about the dreams of those who are trans

The hidden ring

I am not sure about this, but I do believe my fantasies about being a girl came with puberty.

In this way I do not follow the more "traditional" transgender story, where the man knows himself to be a woman at a very early age.

I remember a cosmetic box. It had been used for hand cream, I believe, and belonged to my mother. It was circular and blue.

It was a large NIVEA box, not the flat one made of metal, but a larger one made of plastic.

In this box I put a ring made of chocolate tinfoil wrappers. I used to fantasize that if I put on the ring, it would turn me into a woman.

From a psychological point of view the symbolism is clear:

The ring and the circular box refers to completeness (the ring never ends) and femininity (the curves and softness of women). The box is the womb, where my unborn self lays dormant.

The box is blue, which symbolizes the sea (the feminine side) and the sky (the masculine side).

There are two possible messages from this fantasy.

One is that I am truly a woman that expects to be born as a woman, into the world as a true transsexual.

The other one is that I am to unite the feminine and masculine sides and accept that I am both, regardless of whether my sexual organs point outwards or inwards.

This is a the most important question for me right now.

Dear fellow autogynephiliacs crossdreamers, can you remember when these feelings awakened in you?