The Man in Me

How Autosexual Women Used Lesbianism to Manifest their Masculine Persona

Autosexuality can be best understood as the desire to be that which one is attracted to. It is experienced as an inability to differentiate external attraction from what one’s own physicality should be. Autosexuality is most commonly observed in heterosexual males, and manifests as arousal at the idea of being female and/or intense aversion to one’s own male body. The former is what is understood as a “paraphilia” and the latter as “gender dysphoria”; however, these are physiological and psychological responses to the same root cause. We know that cause as Autogynephilia (AGP).

Males are not the only sex to have this experience of confusing the target of one’s attraction from one’s self. I believe same phenomenon exists in females, but due to the nature of female sexuality, it does not manifest as a paraphilia. It is primarily experienced as an internal sense of ‘maleness’ and intense aversion to one’s female anatomy. While male sexuality is object oriented (which is why AGPs fixate on women’s clothes and having female body parts), female sexuality is relationally oriented. Therefore, in females we won’t see a sexual fixation on men’s clothes or even anatomy, but rather a fixation on playing the male role in the confines of a romantic relationship.

An important facet of autosexuality is ‘meta-attraction’, which is attraction to those that help realize the autosexual’s fantasy understanding of themself. This is widely observed in AGP men and transwomen who seek out sexual relationships with men. They don’t seek out these relationships because they are sexually attracted to men, but because the sexual dynamic of playing the receptive partner with a man helps the AGP materialize the fantasy of the self as female. Due to the relationally driven nature of female sexuality described above, we actually see this behavior more often in females than in males. I believe this dynamic accounts for the large majority of ‘butch lesbians’ of the past as well as the ‘true transsexual’ transmen of today.

For the record, some females are innately homosexual, but they aren’t necessarily “butch”. Butch was a cultural identity that involved performing masculinity and dating feminine women. Within the lesbian community, butches were often referred to with masculine language, such as male nicknames and pronouns. And, despite the feminist philosophy that girded lesbian communities, the butch in the butch/femme pairing could be possessive and even sexist toward their girlfriends. They could also be physically violent with other butches, usually in a demonstration of the aforementioned possessiveness. Essentially, part of the butch role was performing a kind of masculinity that could politely be called traditional, or, more accurately, toxic.

Another facet of the butch/femme relationship is a traditionally heteronormative sexual dynamic, in which the femme is the receptive sexual partner and the butch is exclusively in the penetrative role. Butches were often ‘stone’, which meant they would not allow their girlfriends to touch their genitalia. In fact, sex was frequently choreographed to ensure nothing reminded the butch that she was a woman at all. It was even common for butch lesbians to ‘pack’ (wear a false bulge or dildo). This was likewise understood as an extension of the heteronormative sexual dynamic.

The parallels are unmistakable to anyone with a working understanding of AGP. While AGP males are more likely to use clothes and other props to manifest ‘the woman within’, AAP females do the same with relationships. The irony here is each’s attempt to manifest the opposite sex aligns with their actual sex. By that I mean, men use objects to achieve their view of womanhood and women use relationships to achieve their view of manhood. To quote Helen Joyce, “I never see sex so completely as when looking at those who deny sex entirely.”

In either case, I do not believe autosexuality is a “fetish”. As stated previously, it does manifest as such in males, but such is the nature of male object-oriented sexuality. The same root phenomenon is present in females, but it is unlikely to manifest fetishistically. Instead, autoandrophilia (AAP), will present primarily as “gender dysphoria” - a feeling of alienation with one’s own sexed characteristics and an intense desire to occupy the social role of men. But what has actually happened is a subconscious, and most likely pre-pubescent misunderstanding between who one wants to be with and who one wants to be. I believe understanding this phenomenon as a fetish or a paraphilia misses the fundamental mechanism at work.

Just like how children develop ‘crushes’ prior to puberty, and the direction of those crushes lines up with the sex they grow up to be attracted to (for example, gay men report developing crushes on other boys prior to their sexuality actually developing), autosexuality likewise manifests in an asexual manner prior to puberty. For AGP’s, with puberty comes an intense attraction to females as well as a sexual fixation on being female. It is unmistakably sexual. Prior to this they often “wished they were girls”, but the feeling was not experienced in a sexual manner. Puberty, and it’s associated flood of testosterone, changes that.

Females however do not experience this massive flood of testosterone. Therefore, girls who wished they were boys never experience a sudden shift where that desire becomes intrinsically and indisputably linked to their sexuality. Instead, it’s something that gradually and subtly shapes their understanding of themselves and how they sexually relate to others. Some can shake off their fixation on being male in favor of developing sexual relationships with men. Others prioritize that internal sense of the self as male over external relationships with men, and seek relationships with other girls as a means of externally manifesting their internal masculine persona. My hypothesis is these are the women who primarily became ‘butch’ in recent history. They are also the ones who transitioned as soon as it was feasible for them.

Which brings me to my final piece of evidence suggesting many butches were heterosexual underneath the homosexual performance that was demanded by the masculine persona. Starting in the 90s and escalating in the early 00s, masculine presenting lesbians started transitioning and taking male levels of testosterone. Many of them started leaving their female partners and began dating men. They were suddenly, intensely attracted to men. Why? I don’t believe testosterone can change one’s sexuality. Instead what it does is magnify existing attractions. Attractions that were inconvenient, or undermined one’s masculine identity, could no longer be subsumed in service to that identity. When these butch lesbians gained male-sized libidos, their eyes turned to men. Their meta attraction to women was overpowered by their baser attraction to men.

It is important to note, that until the rise of transgenderism, the only place where female expressions of masculinity were embraced was the lesbian community. That is, butch lesbianism was the only cultural explanation that existed for female expressions of masculinity. People often talk about ‘butches’ as if they are a physiologically specific type of woman. They aren’t. It is a purely aesthetic and cultural label. And that ‘butch’ label appealed to different women for different reason. Some of those women were genuinely homosexual and naturally masculine. Others were fleeing male sexual attention and the expectations of traditional womanhood. But I believe the majority were AAP.

To recap, my argument is that a considerable number of “butch lesbians” were driven by an unspoken desire to embody masculinity, especially in a relationship dynamic, and this was accommodated and embraced within the lesbian community. How else can we explain the expressions of toxic masculinity and pantomime of heterosexuality within the lesbian (and mostly feminist) communities?

But perhaps an even better question is, why did the femmes accommodate it? My even more controversial answer to that coming soon!