Talk:Androphilia and gynephilia

Etymology

Gynephilia is philologically inconsequent, [...]; while gynophilia is formed in violation of Greek word formation rules, [...]

Picky, picky. It's no worse than "television". Shouldn't an Etymology section just say what the etymology is rather than criticising it? David-Sarah Hopwood (talk) 01:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Untitled comment

'...with the aim of therapy usually being to substitute gynophilic desires for pedophilic ones.' I guess the therapy aims to make females undergoing the treatment into lesbians, then.

Hirschfeld and androphilia?

DanB DanD rightly asked for a source for Hirschfeld's "threefold classification system" (ephebophilia, androphilia and gerontophilia), allegedly from the early 20th century. The ephebophilia article makes the following claim: "[Ephebophilia] is a term of recent coinage, created by psychologist John Money in the late twentieth century." The following reference is given: Rahman, Tariq (1988). Ephebophilia: the case for the use of a new word, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 24(2), 126-141.

Oddly, the Rahman article doesn't seem to support the claim, as least as I could see from a quick read. The author actually calls for the adoption of a "new word", ephebophilia, which would be defined as "male sexual interest in boys and youths as if the latter were surrogates of women". He writes: "This word has not been used in English, although it has been used [in a 1980 article by Felix Buffiere]" in French.

I also found a 2002 letter to the editor from The Advocate magazine. The author, Thomas Kraemer, writes: "The word ephebophilia is not "newly invented," as Richard Goldstein claims ["The Double Standard," August 20], because nearly a century ago Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld defined it as homosexuals "who are attracted to youths from puberty to the early 20s." Goldstein is right that it is a double standard to diagnose gay ephebophilia, because the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual names only pedophilia as a mental disorder, which is carefully restricted to being a "focus on prepubescent children.""

However, there are no references. Curioser and curioser! ntennis 03:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh crap, that's my fault! I think that reference to Rahman is supposed to go with the etymology. It was me who inserted the attribution to John Money (who definitely did use the term), but it looks like I put the {{fact}} tag in the wrong place. I apologize for sucking.

DanB†DanD 03:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I googled up a source that says Money coined "ephebophilia," and that source sources the claim to this:

John Money, Lovemaps: Clinical Concepts of Sexual-Erotic Health & Pathology, Paraphilia & Gender Transposition in Childhood, Adolescence & Maturity, Irvington Publishers: New York, 1993 (Reprint: original edition published in 1988)

Anybody have a copy? It's entirely possible that Money picked up term from Hirschfeld and popularized in the context of his own ideas.

DanB†DanD 03:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Relevant part of this source [1]:

This term – ephebophilia - is not yet widely recognised or used, and many professionals still use the traditional term paedophilia to describe the sexual abuse of pre- and post-pubescent children.

Ephebophilia as a term or as a qualification of paedophilia does not appear in DSM-IV. According to the A.P.A. the significance of a term not appearing in DSM-IV means that, as of 1994, there was not sufficient data to justify inclusion at that time. Being a qualification of the term paedophilia, ephebophilia belongs to the category of paraphilias. The term ephebophilia was coined by Dr. John Money, a sexologist at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. It is defined by him as a sexual attraction for adolescents, applying in the same way to male-female and male-male encounters. (and the ref. is to the above)

That source is from this Catholic journal, not really an academic publication

DanB†DanD 04:13, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for following this up. Obviously Money couldn't have coined the term in Lovemaps (1988) — although he may have coined it earlier. I did find an article from 1974 that uses both 'ephebophilia' and 'androphilia' (and doesn't feel the need to define them, either): Kurt Freund, Ernest Nagler, Ronald Langevin, Andrew Zajac and Betty Steiner, Measuring feminine gender identity in homosexual males, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 3, Number 3 / May, 1974. Springer, Netherlands. ISSN 0004-0002.

So I guess Rahman hasn't done his research. I wouldn't be surprised if the term does in fact go back to Hirschfeld; I believe that the term 'transsexual' has been widely credited to Harry Benjamin but was in fact a Hirschfeldism. Look forward to more sleuthing — AKA original research. :P ntennis 08:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's another (unhelpful) reference, from the Newsletter of the Connecticut Psychological Association (Summer 2002). The article, titled Treating Clergy Who Sexually Abuse Minors, By L.M. Lothstein, claims that "John Money coined the term "ephebophilia" to apply to an individual's targeting of teenagers for their sexual desires". ntennis 08:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Yet another candidate for coining ephebophilia (given here in the synonymous form "hebephilia"): Bernard Glueck, Jr., in 1955.

Thus, the relatively rare erotic preference for prepubescent children has long been denoted as pedophilia (von Krafft-Ebing, 1886/1965), and the — perhaps even rarer — preference for the elderly is conventionally known as gerontophilia (Hirschfeld, 1920). Glueck (1955) contributed the word hebephilia to denote the erotic preference for pubescent children. Except for the occasional, semihumorous use of the term “adultophilia” (e.g., Gebhard, Gagnon, Pomeroy, & Christenson, 1965), there was no sustained effort to label the population majority’s erotic preference for adults until we introduced the term teleiophilia (Blanchard et al., 2000).

—(Ray Blanchard and Howard E. Barbaree, (2005). The Strength of Sexual Arousal as a Function of the Age of the Sex Offender: Comparisons Among Pedophiles, Hebephiles, and Teleiophiles, Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 2005.

It seems odd that Blanchard and Barbaree would credit "gerontophilia" to Hirschfeld but not ephebophilia/hebephilia, if Hirschfeld had indeed mentioned it. Here are the references:

• Glueck, B. C. Jr. (1955). Final report: Research project for the study and treatment of persons convicted of crimes involving sexual aberrations, June 1952 to June 1955. New York: New York State Department of Mental Hygiene.

• Hirschfeld, M. (1920). Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes [Homosexuality in males and females]. Berlin: Louis Marcus.

The editor who contributed the information about Hirschfeld's "threefold classification system" is User:William percy (see this diff). I've left a note on his talk page asking for a citation. ntennis 01:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You are doing awesome research, thanks.

I'm pretty sure that, similar as their meaning is, "hebephilia" and "ephebophilia" have different histories as words. For one thing, "hebephilia" is from the female personification of youth, Hebe, while "ephebophilia" is from "ephebos," a generic word for male youths, and has historically been used in a gay context.

OH!

Is it possible that Hirschfeld did indeed coin "ephebophilia" as the male homosexual desire for adolescents, but that it was Money who first began to use the term to mean desire for adolescents in general? Could this be why both have been reported as the inventor of the term?

Also, who is the "we" in "we introduced the term teleiophilia"? Because that's a term Money uses too.

DanB†DanD 01:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer about Hebe (mythology), I didn't know the origin of this word. You may be right about Money, but where did he publish this revised definition?

The "we" in the above quote is Blanchard et al, and they give this reference: Blanchard, R., Barbaree, H. E., Bogaert, A. F., Dickey, R., Klassen, P., Kuban, M. E., et al (2000). Fraternal birth order and sexual orientation in pedophiles. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 29, 463–478.

It may be yet another case of misattribution, as the chronophilia article suggests that "teleiophilia" was coined by Kurt Freund, who died in 1996. Now if Ray Blanchard was trying to take credit for a term he didn't actually coin, it would be consistent with Lynn Conway's characterisation of him as dishonestly and aggressively trying to make a place for himself in the history of science (see also Andrea James' Blanchard page.) ntennis 02:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Little update: After some sniffing around for uses of the term teleiophilia, all references I found attributed it to Blanchard. I found that in Freund's articles, he uses the terms gynephilia and androphilia to indicate an erotic preference for adults, not teleiophilia. I also put a note on the chronophilia article asking for a citation. When did Money use the term? ntennis 08:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Androphilia: A Manifesto by Jack Malebranche

I don't know if this article should mention it, or how the book should be entered into wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.255.214.83 (talk) 21:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

The third sexuality?

This is a minor point, but the sentence, "The third common term that describes sexual orientation, bisexuality, makes no claim about the subject's sex or gender identity," seems out of place in the Sex and/or Gender section, as there are actually many non-normative terms to describe sexuality, and this section really concerns itself more with the reason why gynephilia and androphilia are sometimes preferred. It might be appropriate to edit the sentence so the language is less POV--perhaps "other common terms that describe...including bisexual and (queer? other suggestions?), make no implication about the subject's own sexual and gender identity and are broader in terms of the objects of one's desire. (I'm very open to revising that wording.) I still feel, however, that sexual orientations other than gynephilia and androphilia really fall beyond the scope of the article. Locho269 00:32, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, my inclination, unless anyone objects, is to delete the sentence altogether. Locho269 00:33, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Multi Merge discussion

Resolved

 – Merge all to transgender sexuality. -- Banjeboi 02:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I propose merging any usable content from:

• Transmen attracted to men
• Transmen attracted to women
• Transwomen attracted to men
• Transwomen attracted to women

Into this article, the rest can be sent to articles concerning transmen and transwomen if it's not already there. These are splitting gender hairs and conflating social and gender identities. The articles all seem to mirror information we already have and justifies a sexual identity onto a gender identity that casually implies most or all transmen are this or that, this may also be reaching into original research concerns. It causes more problems then simply explaining what Gynophilia and androphilia are and linking to existing articles about transmen and transwomen that appropriately details history. In any case it would be wisest to merge and clean-up content at Gynephilia and androphilia. -- Banjeboi 03:11, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• Merge all as nominator and consider deleting redirects. -- Banjeboi 03:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
• Merge all - I think it's overkill to have that many articles that basically say the same thing save for gender swapping. It should all be in one article. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 11:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose There is more to these articles than sexuality. These articles exist because each of the above named groups has unique concerns, issues, and even history. i.e. transwomen attracted to men is the best place to put information about the marriage rights of such people which are in a really strange place. (We could almost universally get married if we had srs but, ironically due in part to the LGB marriage rights movement we have all but lost that right in the USA.) We have a long recorded history separate and apart from the LGB. Transwomen attracted to women, same thing, they have different issues than transwomen attracted to men. i.e. For a long time they were not accepted in the lesbian community, especilly by radical feminist. They were/are treated badly by the psychological profession. Transmen attracted to men have suffered almost total erasure from the literature, many psychologist were not aware they existed. They share in common with transmen attracted to women being relatively ignored.... These articles are young and in progress give us some time to develope them a bit more. Please. --Hfarmer (talk) 14:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
• Comment. I believe a better merge might be transgender sexuality. Gynephilia and androphilia are not used exclusively for transgender people. Jokestress (talk) 16:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I endorse this comment. --Hfarmer (talk) 18:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with Jokestress on this. I believe that the articles are too specific and need to be merged somewhere, and transgender sexuality is a better place than here. If they grow big enough, there might be justification for splitting them out later, but keeping them in one article for now should result in a better quality article. --AliceJMarkham (talk) 00:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Merging to transexual sexuality definitly sounds like the best suggestion so far. Having every combination of gender & sexual preference is overboard and does a disservice to curious readers. Having all the info on one page is better in every way.YobMod 00:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with redirecting the goal article to transgender sexuality. -- Banjeboi 13:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if that is totally appropriate, since those articles are not just about sexuality. But I will not object to this informaiton being there. But I am not sure it is the absolute best option. Perhaps a rename of the article transgender sexuality to something else to reflect this change? --Hfarmer (talk) 15:58, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm missing something, we do consider transmen and transwomen within the umbrella transgender? And these article do refer to attraction as their main purpose. Any other content can be merged to other articles as appropriate so we don't lose anything. -- Banjeboi 20:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The logic we used in specifying attractions was that by way of their attractions different and distinct issues arise. This is information that is IMO too detailed for the articles "transsexual" and "transgender" which are huge as they are. As for transman and transwoman being transgender.... Well, in my experience the term transwoman was only applied to transsexual women, not CD's, DQ's etc. People who though they may dress as a woman occasionally, will punch you in the mouth if you call them a transwoman. IMHO the word in front of these should always have been transsexual not transgender. Moving them was not discussed very much at all.--Hfarmer (talk) 13:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Those issues can be clarified at the article level. In the lede, for instance, it's perfectly reasonable to clarify ____ term is often broadened to include x, y and z. -- Banjeboi 13:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

As you have said to me in the past. Wikipedia has to follow not lead. Just how are these words used in the world. What do the sources. say?--Hfarmer (talk) 13:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm after some quick Googleling there is nothing as definitively authoratative as a definition. The uses of the word I see vary greatly, though on the whole you are right. The word "transwoman" is used for the whole spectrum.  :-/ So that is I think the way it should be used here. --Hfarmer (talk) 13:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Sexual orientation and transgender or Transgender sexuality are the umbrella articles about transsexualism, not this article. Gynephilia and androphilia are at first orientation of majority of people. Gynephilia of heterosexual man is the same gynephilia as gynephilia of homosexual women or as gynephilia of transsexual person. The article about gynephilia isn't the article about transsexualism or transgender. --ŠJů (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
  • The discussion so far seems to have agreement that transgender sexuality would be a better target. Does that work for you? -- Banjeboi 14:22, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

• • Yes, transgender sexuality is the good name for an article about erotic orientation of transgender persons. This article (Gynephilia and androphilia) is related to it only marginally.

• Comment. I think if this article must be moved, transgender sexuality would be the best option. Keep up the good work, everybody. Miscellanium (talk) 00:39, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

A Transsexual/transgender project

Here is what I think is needed to make some sense of this whole mess. A unified project or just a less formal effort to reorganize the transsexual/transgender articles. . i.e. The article transgender needs to be trimmed and sub articles spun off of it. One of these will be transsexuality. Then this information should be put in the proper sub articles. i.e. I am sure one about legal concerns exist. Some of this information can go there. I am not sure if a unified overview of transgender/transsexual history is on here, the closest is I think transsexual/transgender in non-western cultures. That one could be repurposed to cover transgender/transsexual history across the board, with subarticles. Then there are of course the always contentious articles which deal with the way psychologist/sexologist have treated T's, their theories etc.... eitology of transsexualism get's close to being an umbrella for all of that but not quite.

Let's face it this discussion really is about overall organizeation of the information about transsexual/transgender issues. Right now there is none. There are patches that are well organized and well written here and there, but overall it's a mess of articles that talk right past eachother.--Hfarmer (talk) 13:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, and that's why we already have Wikipedia:Wikiproject LGBT studies and why most of the editors working on trans articles are members of that project. --AliceJMarkham (talk) 06:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

"Indeed" :-/ Perhaps that explains why this is just a big steaming mess. Perhaps more focused attention is needed to the specifics of transgenderism which is really a misnomer since there is no single unifiying ism there. There are a bunch of social, psycholocial, or physiological phenomena which lead to notable gender variance. Where as every letter in LGB more or less repersents one idea T means many many things. Understand what I am saying?--Hfarmer (talk) 04:49, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Well I certainly do but disagree that every letter in LGB more or less repersents one idea, they really don't. Even within a small network of lesbians, for instance you will find widely varying concepts of definition, identity and culture. The one constant in LGBTI cultures is that there really is no one constant. -- Banjeboi 12:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)ificant

The differences between a CD and DQ and a TS are way more significant than those between say... a leatherman, and a bottom. CD's DQ's and TS's are totally different species, while lipstick lesbians, and radfem stone butch lesbians are more like varieties of one species.  :-/ maybe that's not the best analogy. But do you get my drift? To be a transsexual is to live every moment in the gender opposite to that role which was assigned at birth. A transsexual like me is a transwoman even if naked as a j-bird, a CD or a DQ not so. Understand? --Hfarmer (talk) 02:34, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't share this view but understand what you are saying. Labels are not so clear cut and people do change, and change again. This is, in part, why self-identification is important to our articles. -- Banjeboi 01:32, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

CDs, DQs and TSes are all at different places on the transgender continuum that includes full-time CDs, non-op TSes, de-transitioned TSes, borderline personality disorder pseudo-TSes, etc. There are too many variations along the scale to really be able to define an arbitrary point as the boundary between "us" and "them", and I've never seen any situation where doing so is productive except for some anti-TG churches, where a division makes it easier to ignore the post-op TSes and attack all other TS TG people. --AliceJMarkham (talk) 05:43, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes but differnt points on a spectrum is enough difference to warrant separate articles...and once enough separate articles exist, a separate project (at least defacto) comes into being.--Hfarmer (talk) 21:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

In theory, if we had unlimited interested editors this wouldn't be an issue but generally we don't. Many good ideas for Wikiprojects don't take flight because they simply aren't sustainable. -- Banjeboi 03:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Split request

"Gynephilia" and "androphilia" are two different terms. Eech of them has its own meaning, its own history, its own context. Its no practical to combine both of them in a conjoint article. Each of those two items is important enough for a separated article. --ŠJů (talk) 14:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I think there needs to be a general expansion of this article as well. The article does not remind readers that the use of gerontophilia and ephebophilia as homosexual male specific is antiquated, and it also does little to remind the reader that since the trans movement started using "androphilia" and "gynephilia" the terms have become less about age preference and more about gender/sexual preference. We should split the articles, find more sources detailing their uses (modern and outdated), and also have a short history section having to do with the history and taboos of sexual attraction to men and sexual attraction to women (that way they become more encyclopedic, rather than being just etymology and usage pages that should be in Wiktionary). Kyle112 (talk) 11:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Split ftw.24.164.65.65 (talk) 05:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

• There is currently insufficient reliably sourced material to justify a split into two or more stand alone articles. The priority is to build and source the present article and when ready split out per WP:Summary style. Split declined. SilkTork *^YES! 16:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Philogyny

Philogyny, which is a stub article, should probably be merged into this one - it apparently means 'fondness, love, or admiration' towards women rather than strictly sexual attraction, but it's a similar enough topic that I don't think it needs a separate page. (Note that 'philogyny' and 'gynophilia' are just the same Greek words in a different order.) Robofish (talk) 00:32, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Oppose; these are different concepts. The ones described here seem to be terms coined in the 20th century for taxonomy (orthogonal to the homo/hetero distinction), or in contrast to pedophilia. Philogyny is a concept in classical thought. Conflating them would be anachronistic. Qwertyus (talk) 23:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Understanding and Terminology to amateurs

This article is actually surprisingly technical, with many sections that are not understandable to those who are new to the topics. As well, it uses a lot of specialized language with no plain language explanations or offerings to learn more (for example, teleiosexual is used in a context in which a fluent/mother-tongue English speaker and editor cannot derive its meaning but no definition exists in Wiki and could not be found in a Google search - it was always used to assist in the definition of other terms). People are never going to become interested in the issues if they can't understand the language, and amateurs are a primary audience of Wikipedia readers, with guidelines to write for them!

Side note: the lack of citation has already been pointed out, but to add to it, as I was searching to find definition for some terms, I found many exact texts. This asks the classic "chicken or the egg" question of who took from who? While Wiki might be copy-left, other sites are not and citations would greatly clarify the situation (though direct text lifting should not be done in Wiki). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.246.88.31 (talk) 11:11, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I just came across this article... and frankly, it looks like a hunk'o'junk to me. "Androsexuality" and "gynesexuality"? Does anybody actually use these terms, as opposed to "androphilia" and "gynephilia", which appear to have some use among sexologists? "Uranistic"? Who has used that term since the time of Hirschfeld -- the 20's? Lord, Jack Malebranche? What on earth does he have to do with it, besides seeking to create a whole new (uncommon, idiosyncratic, masculist-propagandistic) meaning for the term different from the received understanding as "attracted to males"?

Oh, and User:James Cantor paid a visit in order to insert his fave Reference, Dr. Richard/Alice Novik... apropos of ???? At least THAT got deleted!

The section on "Use for transsexual people" makes sense... but what is the point of the "Gynesexuality" section, besides inflicting confusion on the innocent? Is this page the domain of philologists? ???

Finally... why is this article here, rather than in Wiktionary? Color me perplexed! bonze blayk (talk) 02:27, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Delete page?

This page has had very many issues for very many years. It does WP no good, and no appears able to produce references for the long-unsourced (and rather POVish) claims on the page. I believe it should be nominated for deletion.— James Cantor (talk) 21:53, 12 June 2011 (UTC)