Everything about Gynephilia And Androphilia totally explained
Gynephilia (or
gynophilia) (From Greek
gunē, "women," +
-philia, "love") is the romantic and/or sexual attraction to adult females, and its counterpart
androphilia (from Greek
andro-, "male," +
-philia, "love") is attraction to adult males. There are two main reasons why these terms have been used: to describe either the age or the
sex/
gender of the object of an individual's
sexual orientation.
Sex and/or gender
The terms gynephilia and androphilia are occasionally (but increasingly) used when referring to the
sexual orientation of
transgender,
intersex, and other
genderqueer or intergender people, since the terms
homosexual (same-sex) and
heterosexual (different-sex) can be unclear. In describing an individual's
sexual orientation as homosexual or heterosexual, we're not only saying something about the
sex/
gender of their object choice, but also something about their own sex/gender — specifically, that their sex and/or gender is the same as, or different from, that of those they desire. Difficulties in making these judgements can be seen, for example, in debates about whether female-attracted
transmen are a part of the lesbian community. Androphilia and gynephilia are often preferred, because rather than focusing on the sex or gender of the subject, they only describe that of the object of their attraction.
The third common term that describes sexual orientation,
bisexuality, makes no claim about the subject's sex or gender identity.
Age
The terms can also be used to distinguish attractions to adults from
pederasty and
pedophilia. In the field of
sex offender rehabilitation, the term
gynophilia is used to mean "attraction to adult women", in contrast with
pedophilia, with the aim of therapy usually being to replace pedophilic desires with gynophilic ones.
Magnus Hirschfeld, writing in the early 20th century, offered a threefold age classification system for homosexual males:
- Ephebophiles, "who are attracted to youths from puberty to the early 20s."
- Androphiles, who prefer men from age 20 to 50s
- Gerontophiles, who prefer older men.
The term androphilia has been useful in describing societies where
pederasty was the norm, but where homosexual attraction to adult men was frowned upon.
Other uses
A book by
Jack Malebranche uses the term androphilia in its title:
Androphilia, A Manifesto: Rejecting the Gay Identity, Reclaiming Masculinity (ISBN 0-9764035-8-7). The author uses the term to emphasise
masculinity in both the object and the subject of male homosexual desire, and reject the gender nonconformity that he sees in gay identity.
Etymology
Gynephilia is philologically inconsequent, as it takes the nominative instead of the root, and would have as its counterpart
anerphilia (From Greek
anēr, "men," +
-philia), not
androphilia ; while
gynophilia is formed in violation of Greek word formation rules, cf. gynaecology/gynecology (From Greek
gynaiko-, "female," +
logos)
Footnotes
Further Information
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