Homosexual, Bisexual and ‘Not-Men’.

Originally posted 2018-09-07 04:38:50.

Homosexual, Bisexual and ‘Not-Man’ are confusing concepts because they originate in different cultures. The modern Western concept of ‘homosexual,’ or as they prefer ‘gay,’ does not fit well with the older ones, which are still dominant in most of the world.  ‘Not-Men’ is an older concept.

The term homosexual itself was coined by Karl-Maria Bengkert, alias Kertbeny, in 1869, along with heterosexual and bisexual. It refers to sexual contact either between two males or two females. Kertbeny also invented the term heterosexual. However, these definitions were completely new and bore little relation to terms and understandings that had persisted for literally millennia. Kertbeny’s approach was not universally adopted.

Another description, which appeared around the same time, would be Sexual Inversion. This can be Innate (congenital,) or Acquired. However, there is evidence that the Acquired form is actually a latent or otherwise suppressed form of the Innate. This may account for the variation in apparent nature and prevalence of this form.  In England, the term was popularised by British physician and sexologist Henry Havelock Ellis. He co-authored the groundbreaking book Sexual Inversion (1897) with English historian and activist John Addington Symonds, which was the first objective medical textbook on homosexuality in the English language.

These two perspectives were opposed to each other, since Ellis in particular saw homosexuality as a personality type, marked by characteristic sexual inversion, by which he meant the adoption of feminised behaviours on the part of males and masculinised ones on the part of females. This was a holistic view which asserted that inverted sexual and social behaviours were the natural result of particular personality types.

For most of the early twentieth century, the Sexual Inversion camp held sway and for good reason; for literally thousands of years, some males had been identified as being feminine and some females masculine. The feminine males tended to be sexually submissive, were attracted to extremely masculine, often violent men and affected feminised dress and comportment; they also tended to be slight and physically weak, while the female form tended to be attracted to very feminine, younger girls of whom they tended to be protective and somewhat controlling. These females were often ‘butch’. This view was perhaps best encapsulated in Greenspan and Campbell’s The Homosexual as a Personality Type.¹

This view was consistent with the previous understanding, which I call the Roman and it was widely accepted  everywhere.  A particular feature of the Personality-Type description is that in it and in the cultures which supported it, only the submissive partner (in males) is considered to be anything other than an ordinary man, while several different titles, for example catamite, were attached to the submissive party. In females, only the masculine party was considered to be lesbian.  In Kertbeny’s model, only behaviours are homosexual or heterosexual and these are independent of personality type, while in the older understanding, the personality type gives rise to the behaviours. Somehow, although this does not appear to have been Kertbeny’s intention, the term homosexual replaced the older terms, like catamite and so on but kept the sense of a personality type that they implied. The conflation of these ideas has been responsible for much confusion.

To clarify, then, we use the term homosexual (in males) to mean a feminised or unmasculine male who seeks to be dominated and penetrated by strongly masculine males. He therefore exhibits sexual inversion.  As a result of this inversion he seeks to be submissive and to play the female role in sex. Invariably, these males will describe enjoying great pleasure from being anally  and orally penetrated, and will be more or less obsessed with phalluses.

Critically, sexual behaviour with another male, which is very common in situational homosexuality and is possibly the most common form of same-sex intimacy, does not make a male a homosexual, because it depends on the sexual role being played. In the same way, sexual behaviour with another female does not a lesbian make. Only personality determines one’s status. Kertbeny was therefore completely wrong; unfortunately his error persists.

 

Types of Sexual Inversion

Sexual Inversion in males is found in two forms, congenital (per Ellis) or innate, and acquired. Both are usually signaled by a characteristic feminisation of the individual, across a range of parameters both physical and behavioural. The congenital form may become apparent in childhood, around five years of age. Such cases always include a more or less complete rejection of the dominant male sexual role and adoption of the submissive, female one. Following from that it is marked by a strong attraction to masculine males who, after all, possess the Organ of Ecstasy.  It may be the result of either anomalies in testosterone delivery to the foetus in utero, or some failure in the way the Androgen Receptors (AR) interpret that delivery. In other words, they get the testosterone but it doesn’t work. This is similar to Partial and Complete Androgen Insensitivity and to Swyer Syndrome. Since these appear on a scale of variation in affect, it’s reasonable to posit that one variation might be the partial or complete inversion of sexuality. This appears to match observation.

 

The Acquired form usually becomes apparent later, around or after puberty or in the mid-teens, though it can appear even later, until the mid-twenties. Similar to the Innate form, it is marked by a desire to play the passive role in sexual relations with men. We do not yet know how this comes about but it may be that early masturbatory or sexual experiences are implicated, or it may be that the normal establishment of masculinity-revulsion (or androphobia), which occurs in males in later adolescence and early adulthood has for some reason failed. Notably, individuals with the acquired or latent form tend to be bigger, more muscular and less feminine than the Innate group. This may be because in the congenital group, testosterone is naturally suppressed. (Note however that in many cultures, boys may begin taking feminising hormones in their early to mid teens and this will likely suppress their natural masculinisation.)

 

Homosexuality in males can therefore be defined as the inversion of sexuality from the normal male, which is dominant, active and penetrative, to pseudo-female, which is submissive, passive and receptive. (Female inverts and lesbians are not the same as the male forms, inverted.) However, there is another issue, one which remains relatively unresearched. This is Situational Homosexuality and its counterpart, Situational Lesbianism. Essentially, where members of the opposite sex are not available for intercourse, individuals will have sex with others of the same sex. Well known examples are prison sex, boarding-school sex and shipboard sex although there are many others. This also applies to pederasty, sexual relations between men and boys. In every instance in which this appears, access to women is constrained.² The English author and self-described homosexual Quentin Crisp stated that ‘Men are neither heterosexual nor homosexual, they are just sexual’ meaning that a man would penetrate whomever was available, following the circumstances.³

In this model, Bisexualism, which is the desire both to penetrate and to be penetrated, should be seen as a somewhat milder expression of Inversion. This is at odds with the fashionable but wildly incorrect understanding in the West, which relies too heavily on ‘attraction,’ presumably because it allows certain individuals to play with their penile plethysmographs (a strain gauge for the cock.) It also, following the ridiculous ideas popular in the USA, sees a man who is attracted to penetrating adolescent boys as somehow ‘different.’ Let’s be clear: Men penetrate and their targets are always unmasculine, because they are androphobic. Both boys and women qualify and there are literally millennia of history, from all over the world, of men penetrating them as substitutes for women. Not-men get penetrated, even if sometimes they penetrate too, in which case they’re Bisexual, but still Not-men.  The difference lies in the act of penetration, the refusal of which defines ‘Men’ and the acceptance of which defines ‘Not-men.’

A male who willingly has sex both as the inserter or the ‘insertee’ is bisexual, irrespective of how he describes himself. In the modern West, many ‘gays’ fit that model. That applies also to those men who ‘discover’ they are ‘gay’ in later life, perhaps after years of marriage. They’re bisexuals; a fully Sexually Inverted male would be unable to have insertive sex with a female — and would find it much against her nature to penetrate a man. And they are still Not-men.

Does Homosexual male equal ‘gay’?

Homosexuals are attracted to masculine men, because they have an inversion of sexuality which leads them to be submissive, to desire to be penetrated and to perform femininity as an indication of submissive status. (There is no such thing as a masculine homosexual; it’s an oxymoron.) On the other hand, gay describes a lifestyle, not individuals or their behaviours. Homosexuality can be caused by innate Inversion (but this can be latent) and also by acquisition. This last may occur by experiencing anal penetration and enjoying it. Everyone, male or female, has the same nerves in the anus and these are also implicated in the female orgasm. (Feminists may sit down, Freud was correct; there are two types of orgasm.) As a result, given the right stimulation, anal penetration can indeed produce euphoric results for the recipient, whether male or female.

Typically this will begin with fingering the anus and progress to self-penetration with toys. If this be associated with orgasm then it is likely to become desired as an end in itself. Since men are dominant and have the necessary anatomy to penetrate, homosexuals of both types try to attract them, just as women do. This leads, in tolerant cultures, to transsexualism, in which the homosexual, knowing that men find femininity attractive, maximises her performance of it.  Indeed, I was told by a Filipino that

In the Philippines you’re a gay if you’re a boy who likes men, but only if you dress and behave like a girl.

Julian, personal email.

Such an individual rightly finds the idea of performing masculinity while trying to attract masculine men absurd, because like does not go with like; opposites attract. However, she does not perform thus only because she wants to attract men, but because she finds it stimulating to appear to be a sexually attractive girl. (Walking through a mall with a pretty ladyboy admiring herself in the shop windows is instructive.) This phenomenon is autogynephilia, so a transsexual is effectively a homosexual with that condition. Women also experience these feelings, although this has been disputed by some, like Prof. Ray Blanchard. We are inclined to see this as men telling women what feelings they are allowed to have. (Note: fetishistic transvestites are neither homosexual nor transsexual. They are non-homosexual males with autogynephilia, which is often out of control.)

All transsexuals are both homosexual and autogynephilic, that is they are sexually satisfied by stimulation of the anus (and the mouth, which is another erogenous zone) and are also aroused by the thought or image of themselves as girls or women, or by playing female roles, especially in a sexual context. This proceeds in two ways. Congenital Sexual Inverts, per Ellis et al. begin to cross-gender identify while very young, typically in the age range four to six years. Those with the latent or acquired forms tend not to appear before puberty and this is likely to be associated with sexualised anal play. This is not to say that they never experience cross-gender feelings earlier but the general rule holds: innates around five, acquired or latent, fifteen and up.

This requires a more subtle reading of Blanchard. He asserted that in non-homosexual males, transsexualism, which he called Gender Dysphoria, was provoked by autogynephilia and this has been read to mean that the two cases, transsexual homosexuality (ie transsexualism) and autogynephilia (which is not always transvestic) were quite separate. However this seems to rely too heavily on an innate or congenital cause of homosexuality. There is no doubt that many, possibly even a majority of Sexual Inverts are innately so, but to completely exclude the possibility of an acquired or latent form is definitely going beyond the evidence.  I think the key is in fact homosexuality as a practice, which leads, through repetition and sexual reward, to the establishment of sexual inversion. If both innate and latent or acquired homosexuals are behaving according to it, then removing the homosexuality would leave only the autogynephilia; and we would have the typical Western form of fetishistic transvestite: unfeminine and unsurprisingly, non-homosexual.

Even Blanchard himself found 15% of his homosexual subjects exhibited autogynephilia, Nuttbrock found 30% and in my opinion, having studied this in Asia for many years,  100% of transsexuals are autogynephilic, including the most completed and confirmed ones. They might be repulsed by vaginas, but being sexually excited by appearing to be beautiful girls is definitely their shtick. This raises problems with Blanchard’s comment that ‘You have to be gynephilic to be autogynephilic,’ but given that so many ladyboys, who are completely homosexual in every regard and are also fully feminised, are highly autogynephilic too, we have to re-examine that. It appears that the actual cause of autogynephilia is testosterone,⁴ which all inverts have plenty of; females have between 10-20% of male levels but this is quite enough to provoke an autogynephilic erotic reaction. Once again, the attraction model appears to have failed.

This leaves open the conjecture that the well-known dichotomy between those homosexuals who are sex-atypical in childhood and those who do not ‘come out’ until ten or more years later, might in fact be due to the rejection of natural homosexuality, which is probably the result of cultural homophobia. The USA in particular has a real problem with masculine insecurity, which leads to a general hostility towards male femininity and intimate sexual behaviours between males. (A study of other cultures quickly reveals that in this, the West is aberrant.) This may lead to internalised homophobia, the fear that one might be homosexual. It is noteworthy that some of the most masculine societies ever, for example in Greece and Rome, thought nothing of men penetrating other males. They certainly did not consider that it impacted on their masculinity. Once again, only the recipient is considered to be unmasculine.

Once internalised homophobia is established it will in the first place be next to impossible to remove and in the second, is likely to be triggered by any event or statement which might suggest homosexuality on the part of the subject. Enter the typical angry, bullying Western transvestite who is completely in denial of his condition and may even think he is a ‘real woman’ — despite that tallywhacker and the fact that he is completely, often aggressively, androphobic: definitely a potential rapist. Let me restate: you cannot be a transsexual without being homosexual. Rejecting one’s own nature, as a homosexual, is a route to madness.

(Homosexuals, whether transsexual or not, rarely feel the need to have vaginoplasty and if they do have it, it is in response to social and even medical pressure; they already have a hole that gives them pleasure and shattering orgasms and that is all they need, thank you. On the other hand, fetishistic transvestites, who cannot affirm femininity by being the submissive sexual partners of dominant men — because they are dominant men themselves —  often seek it as an affirmation that they are ‘real women’ which is delusional, but typical. )

Inverts in Southeast Asia appear either in childhood or in their mid-teens, when their androphobia, which develops under the effect of testosterone, has not yet been established and so they are much more open to intimacy with men. It is, after all, on this basis, the youthful acceptance of men’s sexual advances, that Pederasty has developed; and that is hardly a scarce or a new phenomenon. This effect seems to be reinforced by taking feminising hormones that inhibit the effects of testosterone

However, once they begin to enjoy the experience of sex with men, they are  enthusiastic about it. I do not believe that this is solely because of psychological affirmation or that they see the male body provoking their pleasure dissimilarly to the way a woman would. Many are the ladyboys who have explained to me in detail how much they love the sensation of being ‘pumped,’ leading me to believe that real physical pleasure is gained from it; one whom I was close to, when asked if it hurt, replied, after a moment’s reflection, ‘Yes, but only at first; then it’s uh, uh, uh, you know?’ Her facial expressions were telling. Others have shrugged and said said, ‘It’s a good pain anyway.’  If that were not proof enough, believe me the effect, on a ladyboy who checks all the boxes for homosexuality, of making love in front of a mirror should be.

That in turn begs the question of why their feminine appearance is so important and if it is, do women feel the same sort of sensations? While I think the essay into this by Dr Charles Moser was specious, I am not convinced that grains of truth were completely absent. We know that women have been dressing and behaving in particular ways for literally thousands of years and while there are differences of detail, an observably feminine comportment is normal amongst women everywhere (see Ellis, Psychology of Sex for an excellent overview.) We also know that these patterns of behaviour and dress have been adopted by catamites and eunuchs throughout recorded history, so perhaps we should recognise that something deeper might be going on; however that would be to stray into the realm of ethnography and for another time.

A noticeable characteristic of fetishistic transvestites that sets them apart from transsexuals is how masculine they are, not only in appearance but also in behaviour. They are pushy, belligerent, demanding and prone to violence as well as criminality, but most notably they are nearly all completely gynephilic. Indeed, they may ferociously reject approaches from men, which is curious since their quasi-feminine presentation is designed to attract male attention. Paradoxically, the more successful they are in portraying femininity, the more they will attract men (and the angrier they will get, apparently.)

It may be that learning to be the submissive sexual partner to a man has the effect of emasculating them and so making them less aggressive and more compliant. I am minded of a  conversation I had with a black trans sex worker, many years ago now, who said ‘Men who don’t ‘bottom’ can be really difficult, impossible to manipulate. But once you’ve fucked them they change completely, become so sweet, give you anything you want,’ I do wonder if this is not germane here.

The Gay Lifestyle

‘Gay’ is actually a lifestyle which comprises homosexuals of both types but also bisexuals, ephebephiles and hebophiles (attracted to teenage boys, basically) non-trans autogynephiles whose fetish is for ‘being a woman’, super-masculine narcissistic homosexuals and even others. These are all real things, not airhead genders. There is no one ‘homosexual’ lifestyle, despite the ongoing efforts of the New Gay Man thought police to ensure everyone  is properly pigeon-holed under their appropriate label in the LBTQalphabet permitted lifestyle and orientation set.

The Western ‘gay’ lifestyle is only relevant in the West and has little meaning outside it. Despite the fact that many cultures do have something superficially similar, for example Kabaklaan in the Philippines, these are emphatically not the same. For example, the concept and term ‘gay man‘ is widely used in the Western New Gay cult but has no meaning at all in Kabaklaan, where it is simply impossible to be both a gay and a man at the same time; those who attempt this are mocked as ‘pa-men’ or ‘macho gays.’ In other words, the condition of being ‘gay’ no matter how it comes about, means that individual cannot be a man.

So, then, what is this person? A woman? Although this has been suggested, certainly not to the traditional Southeast Asian way of thinking because there, a woman is a mother. It is simple and has nothing to do with the feelz. It is a female, a person who has given birth. No homosexual, no matter how pretty she might be, can do that. So she is neither a man, because of her passive sexual nature, nor a woman, because she is not female. So what is she? The best description and it is widely used under different terms, is, in English, a ‘Not-Man.’

To explain this, in most of the rest of the world, traditional society is grouped into ‘men’ and ‘not-men’. This is an ethnographic dichotomy that accurately describes a ‘two group’ culture in which being a ‘man’ means more that just being an adult male, although that is absolutely fundamental. It is why ‘trans men’ do not exist except as an artefact of Western delusions: to be a man, you must first be a male, and becoming pregnant defines you as a mother, in other words, a woman. These schema are mutually incompatible.

Being a Man requires consistent conformity to a range of social, sexual and behavioural rules, and the status ‘man’ is policed more or less rigidly, both by men themselves and by women. Entry into the Men group may require proof of suitability. There might be rites of passage that a young male must pass before entering it and especially while he is young, he is very much on probation, with the older men watching for any slip.

In many such societies, juvenile males, that is, those who have not formally been accepted as ‘Men,’ perform as both receptive and penetrative partners for each other and as receptive ones for Men. However they must absolutely desist from allowing themselves to be penetrated, if they wish to join the Men group. Indeed, in some cultures they must themselves take a boy lover (whom they will penetrate) to prove their adult dominance and thereby, masculinity.

Men and ‘not-men’

‘Not-men’ is a term used by ethnographers to describe the status of homosexuals and other sex-atypical males in traditional societies. It was used by Dr Don Kulick in his research of Brazilian travestis to describe travesti sex workers; although he did not coin it, he popularised the term. The concept is an expression of a model which is current throughout most of the world and works very nicely. (I call it the Roman Model.) It precisely describes a culture wherein ‘Men’ refers to group made up exclusively of males, that is rigidly internally policed in terms of behaviours, and ‘not-men’ is everyone else, including women. In basic terms, if you don’t make the cut as a member of the ‘Men’ group, you get put in the ‘not-men’ group. Being a homosexual absolutely, in these cultures, disbars you from the ‘Men’ group.

These groups, ‘Men’ and ‘Not-men’ are analogous to the prehistoric and modern tribal hunter/warrior or ‘Away’ group and the domestic or ‘Home’ group respectively. This is the basis of human society; it is a system that exposes men to greater risk but protects mothers and children as much as possible. It has been massively successful.

Membership of the ‘Men’ or ‘Away’ group may be conditional on passing certain tests, rituals etc and behaving in certain ways.  Some of these tests may be dangerous and even potentially fatal. For example, David Livingstone recounted how a Masai boy would have to kill a lion alone, armed with only his assegai, a short spear, in order to be accepted. The boys did not always win. Membership of the ‘Home’ or ‘ Not-men’ group is not conditional on anything at all and people in it have considerable freedom of expression.

Males who fail the standard of being a ‘man’ are, by definition, ‘not-men.’ Such an individual’s only refuge is in the Home group, with the women and children. This group is centred on nuclear families, which form the cells of  extended families or clans. These then interconnect to form a tribe and these in turn group to form nations. The family is the individual, basic cell in the structure, but it is closely related to the broader clan and the tribe; everyone in these societies is related. Within the family, in these cultures, women reign. The home is a female space which metaphorically represents the womb  and it operates on rules set by the women. It is a true matriarchy. Men’s behaviour in it is strictly monitored and controlled, not by men, but by women.

The chief amongst these is the grandmother. The hierarchy is like this: unmarried, childless girls begin with no status. As they mature, their status increases in measure of two things: the assistance they give to their mother in caring for her other children; and their physical beauty. This last becomes a standard of merit in these cultures and that is why the performance of beauty is so important both to girls and to ladyboys.

Following from this, the girl is expected to marry. Having a nice, respectable husband who can support her increases her status in the family, but not by much. When she falls pregnant, which she will do as soon as she can, however, her status jumps. She is now a mother; she is like a captain, with her daughters as her lieutenants, with authority over younger siblings as she has them; and in these cultures, women have many babies.

A woman in a society like this who does not marry, or has an indigent husband who refuses to accept his responsibility to his wife’s family, or worse, runs away with another woman, does not gain status even if she has a child. This is because both she and her child will become a burden on the family. She will be too busy caring for her own child to assist her mother.

Matriarchs

As a grandmother, effectively an Admiral, overseeing the lives of all her daughters, a woman becomes a matriarch. Usually, her daughters will be living in the same house, or at least family compound, as she does. As she ages she becomes a great-grandmother and at this point, while her respect increases, her responsibilities decrease and become largely honorary, as running the family finances and businesses become the duties of her own daughters, themselves now grandmothers and matriarchs. Remember that a woman in this culture could easily be a grandmother by the age of 40 or less; great-grandmothers of 55, still in their prime, are not uncommon.

This, the ‘Not-men’  group includes all the children, both boys and girls, the females and crucially, from our point of view, all males who are not eligible, for whatever reason, to be part of the ‘Men’ group.

Those young males who cannot, or do not wish to enter the ‘Men’ group, as they mature, simply remain within the ‘Not-men’ one. There are two principal reasons why a male child would not enter the ‘Men’ group. The first would be severe physical or mental incapacity. If the child simply cannot function alone and has to be looked after, he can’t join the ‘Men’ group. The other reason is femininity. Homosexual boys cannot join, nor can boys who like to dress up as girls or behave in what the culture considers to be unmanly ways. They must always remain in the ‘Not-men’ group, unless they repent of their ways, marry, have children and support them. They may always be regarded somewhat askance by the other men, but the situation is simple: if you meet the standards, you’re in the club.

Young boys are in the ‘Not-men’ group and it is only at puberty that those who will join the ‘men’ group begin to gravitate away from the ‘not-men’ and socialise together.

Sexual targets

In cultures like this, boys are often regarded as legitimate sexual targets for older men. This is because male sexuality in these cultures is defined as ‘he who dominates.’ They do not penetrate other men, firstly because they are repulsed by masculinity, but also because these cultures always have taboos against two men having sex. In some cultures, for example Arabic, this centres on growing a beard; ‘beardless boys’ are considered fair game but bearded men are not. In many such cultures, transgression can lead to execution or shunning. On the other hand, ‘Men‘ can penetrate all the ‘Not-men’ they can get away with.

One of the most targeted groups of boys is, naturally, those who are already exhibiting feminine behaviours and attractions. A significant number of homosexual males, known as bekis, baklas, bading etc in the Philippines, report having been raped as children or young adults, often by a family member or friend. Yet this neither was the cause of their Sexual Inversion nor did it discourage it. In fact, they were targeted because they had been identified as Homosexuals; being raped was a consequence of being effeminate, not a cause.

Further, while virgin girls are protected from male attention by the society, juvenile boys, sometimes called baklitas or baby bekis in the Philippines, are not. This naturally makes them more attractive as targets, because while penetrating a virgin girl may have potentially dire consequences, penetrating a juvenile boy has absolutely none at all. They are expected, in fact, to go through this phase of recipient activity, which may be oral, anal or both. However at  the same time, they often report enjoying the experience and continue to pursue being anally penetrated as they grow up — even though this effectively ostracises them from the ‘Men’ group.

1. Greenspan, Herbert S. and John D. Campbell. “THE HOMOSEXUAL AS A PERSONALITY TYPE.” American Journal of Psychiatry 101 (1945) [↩]
2. Note that in these cultures, prostitutes may be available but boys are preferred, for a variety of reasons. [↩]
3. Crisp, Q The Naked Civil Servant. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977 [↩]
4. Bailey, Dr M The Man Who Would Be Queen, [↩]