Androphilia and gynephilia
Androphilia and gynephilia are terms in behavioral science (the study of human and animal behavior) that describe sexual orientation. It is an alternative to the gender binary in homosexual and heterosexual. Androphilia is attraction to a man or masculinity (any quality or behavior linked to a man). Gynephilia is attraction to a woman or femininity. Ambiphilia (bisexuality) is the combination of androphilia and gynephilia.
The terms describe the focus of attraction with no need to credit a sex assignment or gender identity to the person. It will skirt any difficulty to understand people between the West and the East. The terms will also describe intersex and transgender people.
History
Androphilia
Magnus Hirschfeld was an early 1900s German sexologist (expert in sex and sexuality). Hirschfeld put a homosexual man in one of four groups. A man with attraction to a boy (pedophile). A man with attraction to an adolescent boy (ephebophile). A man with attraction to another young man (androphile). A man with attraction to an old man (gerontophile).
Androphilia, A Manifesto: Rejecting the Gay Identity, Reclaiming Masculinity is a book by Jack Donovan. Donovan uses androphilia to focus on masculinity in male homosexual desire. He also uses the term to reject the femininity and androgyny (combination of masculinity and femininity) in some parts of homosexual life.
Androsexuality is the same as androphilia.
Alternative use in biology and medicine
Androphilic the same as anthropophilic in biology. Anthropophilic is a parasite who will desire a human more than an animal. Androphilic will also describe certain proteins and androgen receptors.
Gynephilia
In Ancient Greek, there is a different form of the term. In Idyll 8, line 60, Theocritus uses gynaikophilias to describe the very strong desire Zeus has for any woman.
Sigmund Freud says gynecophilic to describe his case study (detailed study of one person) Dora. Freud also uses the term in writing.
Gynesexuality is the same as gynephilia. Psychoanalyst Nancy Chodorow says the short preoedipal (attraction to the mother and jealousy of the father) time of focus on the mother should be named gynesexuality or matrisexuality.
Attraction
Androphilia and gynephilia separate group attraction based on how old a person is. John Money names this chronophilia. Attraction to an adult is teleiophilia or adultophilia. Here, androphilia and gynephilia mean "attraction to an adult male" and "attraction to an adult female."
Androphilia and gynephilia scales
Kurt Freund and Betty Steiner create the 9-item Gynephilia Scale and the 13-item Androphilia Scale in 1982. This measures attraction in a mature female or a mature male. In 1985, Ray Blanchard names a new one the Modified Androphilia-Gynephilia Index (MAGI).
Gender identity and behavior
Magnus Hirschfeld sorts between gynephilic, bisexual, androphilic, asexual, and automonosexual (sexual attraction to themselves only) transgender woman.
Since the middle of the 1900s, some psychologists like to use homosexual transsexual (to mean the same as straight transgender woman) and heterosexual transsexual (to mean the same as transgender lesbian). Biologist Bruce Bagemihl is against this. It is because Bageminl thought it makes it simple to say a transsexual is a homosexual male looking to run from stigma. The term "homosexual transsexual" is "heterosexist" because it describes people by sex assignment and not gender identity. Sexologist John Bancroft says he regrets using this language. It was normal at the time Bancroft used it to talk about transgender women. Since 2008, he attempts to use terms that do not hurt the feelings of anyone. Sexologist Charles Allen Moser is also against any terms like that.
Sexologist Militon Diamond supports the terms androphilic, gynecophilic, and ambiphilic to describe any partner a person desires (andro = male, gyneco = female, ambi = both, philic = to love).
Gender in the East
Some scientists support use of the terms to skirt bias in concepts of human sexuality in the West. Johanna Schmidt says that in a society where a third gender is supported, a term like "homosexual transsexual" does not line up.
Related pages
Blanchard study of transgender women
References
Human sexuality