Anatomic Autoandrophilia in an Adult Male

Anne A. Lawrence

Some men are sexually aroused by impersonating the individuals to whom they are sexually attracted, or by permanently changing their bodies to become facsimiles of such individuals. Blanchard (J Sex Marital Ther 17:235-251, 1991) suggested that these paraphilic sexual interests, along with fetishism, represented erotic target location errors, i.e., developmental errors in locating erotic targets in the environment. Because the desire to impersonate or become a facsimile of the kind of person to whom one is attracted can have significant implications for identity, Freund and Blanchard (Br J Psychiatry 162:558-563, 1993) coined the term erotic target identity inversion to describe this type of erotic target location error. The best-known examples of erotic target identity inversions occur in men who are sexually attracted to women and who are also sexually aroused by the idea of impersonating or becoming women; these paraphilic interests manifest as transvestic fetishism and as one type of male-to-female transsexualism. Analogous erotic target identity inversions have been described in men who are sexually attracted to children and to female amputees. In theory, erotic target identity inversions should also occur in men who are sexually attracted to men. There have been no unambiguous descriptions, however, of men who are sexually attracted to men and also sexually aroused by the idea of changing their bodies to become more sexually attractive men. This report describes such a man, whose paraphilic interest would appropriately be called anatomic autoandrophilia. The demonstration that anatomic autoandrophilia exists in men is consistent with the theory that erotic target location errors constitute an independent paraphilic dimension.