I strongly dislike this paragraph since it seems to me to optimize for heat over light. If I were strongly convinced that the Blanchardian camp were up to no good, then I wouldn’t be as put off by dismissing the entirety of their work from a single case of malfeasance. However, I don’t think you come close to demonstrating that in the preceding post, so when you try to convince me that I should be exhausted with them (and imply that I should therefore ignore them), I’m peeved.
In the paper, they claim to be responding to people such as Charles Moser and Scott Alexander, and as I said Charles Moser and Scott Alexander are talking about AGP in trans women. Furthermore, elsewhere on social media they claim that their paper is a rebuttal of these papers they are responding to.
From what I can tell, they’re merely saying that the AGP group and the female group are indeed rather different from eachother in terms of how much AGP they have. My main criticism is something like “well no shit”, but I don’t really see how you can take that and then say that they’re up to no good. Are they using this specific claim elsewhere to do something that isn’t actually supported by this paper? That would be the problem, not what they’re up to here.
It seems to me that this is basically a semantic debate about what it means to “have AGP”. If you take AGP to mean something like “a fetish that you regularly masturbate to”, then I don’t think it’s terribly surprising that females typically don’t “have AGP”. Now, you might wanna push back on that definition of AGP. Sure, go for it. You might claim that the actual rate of females with AGP is high enough that it has significant overlap with the trans women with AGP (Sure, go for it). Your post here, however, seems to go a step much further and assume that I’m convinced that they’re pretty egregiously wrong here and then leverage that presumed-convinced-ness into thinking they’re all a bunch of grifters. I don’t like that, and I trust you less because of it.
I don’t understand why you consider my description in the post dishonest when it seems to me that it is basically the same as how you describe it:
Michael Bailey (the effective leader of autogynephilia theory) recruited samples of highly active members of online erotic AGP communities, and found that these samples are on average much more AGP than cis women, and therefore conclude that AGP in cis women is dubious.
As I described in the post, I think it’s dishonest because of the greater context of the debate.
In the paper, they claim to be responding to people such as Charles Moser and Scott Alexander, and as I said Charles Moser and Scott Alexander are talking about AGP in trans women.
From my understanding, they’re talking about AGP in natal males of any kind as compared to AGP in cis women. Scott and others found evidence of “yes, cis women have some AGP”, whereas they find that the degree to which cis women have AGP is much less than those for whom AGP is a major component of their sexual life. I don’t think it’s crazy to then go on to say “no, really, when we talk about AGP in natal males we’re talking about something distinct from the typical sexual experience of cis women”.
As I described in the post, I think it’s dishonest because of the greater context of the debate.
If you want to make this argument, you have to actually make this argument, which I did not see you do in the post. As I said in my initial criticism, “Are they using this specific claim elsewhere to do something that isn’t actually supported by this paper? That would be the problem, not what they’re up to [in this paper].”
From my understanding, they’re talking about AGP in natal males of any kind as compared to AGP in cis women. Scott and others found evidence of “yes, cis women have some AGP”, whereas they find that the degree to which cis women have AGP is much less than those for whom AGP is a major component of their sexual life.
Yes, that’s my point.
Charles Moser and Scott Alexander made a claim about autogynephilia in trans women and cis women, Michael Bailey decided that he could just ignore the “trans women” part and replace it with “highly active members of online erotic AGP communities”.
I don’t think it’s crazy to then go on to say “no, really, when we talk about AGP in natal males we’re talking about something distinct from the typical sexual experience of cis women”.
They found similar, arguably lower rates of AGP in ordinary male samples compared to ordinary female samples. It is when they filter for highly active members of online erotic AGP communities that they find the highest degrees of AGP.
If you want to make this argument, you have to actually make this argument, which I did not see you do in the post.
I did actually make the argument:
All the people Bailey is responding to were clearly talking about trans women in their texts!
In the paper, they claim to be responding to people such as Charles Moser and Scott Alexander, and as I said Charles Moser and Scott Alexander are talking about AGP in trans women. Furthermore, elsewhere on social media they claim that their paper is a rebuttal of these papers they are responding to.
I don’t understand why you consider my description in the post dishonest when it seems to me that it is basically the same as how you describe it:
As I described in the post, I think it’s dishonest because of the greater context of the debate.
From my understanding, they’re talking about AGP in natal males of any kind as compared to AGP in cis women. Scott and others found evidence of “yes, cis women have some AGP”, whereas they find that the degree to which cis women have AGP is much less than those for whom AGP is a major component of their sexual life. I don’t think it’s crazy to then go on to say “no, really, when we talk about AGP in natal males we’re talking about something distinct from the typical sexual experience of cis women”.
If you want to make this argument, you have to actually make this argument, which I did not see you do in the post. As I said in my initial criticism, “Are they using this specific claim elsewhere to do something that isn’t actually supported by this paper? That would be the problem, not what they’re up to [in this paper].”
Yes, that’s my point.
Charles Moser and Scott Alexander made a claim about autogynephilia in trans women and cis women, Michael Bailey decided that he could just ignore the “trans women” part and replace it with “highly active members of online erotic AGP communities”.
They found similar, arguably lower rates of AGP in ordinary male samples compared to ordinary female samples. It is when they filter for highly active members of online erotic AGP communities that they find the highest degrees of AGP.
I did actually make the argument: