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Original Articles
Introduction
Erotic interest in natal males who have female-typical physical characteristics (e.g. breasts) while retaining a penis is not well understood. Individuals who possess this combination of male and female physical characteristics are called gynandromorphs (gyne refers to female, andro to male, and morph to form), and men with particular erotic interest in these individuals are gynandromorphophilic (Blanchard & Collins, 1993; henceforth, we refer to gynandromorphs as GAMs, and gynandromorphophilic as GAMP). Natal males who have become GAMs by acquiring female-typical physical characteristics such as breasts through surgery or feminizing hormone therapy while retaining a penis are sometimes referred to simply as transgender women (e.g. Operario et al. 2008) or transwomen (e.g. Weinberg & Williams, 2010) but are commonly and colloquially referred to as shemales1[dagger] or t-girls. In one analysis of Internet searches comprising sexual interests, 'shemales' was the sixteenth most popular search term (Ogas & Gaddam, 2011). A count of videos at a popular adult video site (http://www.aebn.net) yielded 4071 indexing 'shemale' of a total of >94 000.
Sexual interest in GAMs, who possess both male and female physical characteristics, is paradoxical by common understandings of sexual orientation, which emphasize sexual arousal to either the male or female form (e.g. Freund, 1974). This suggests the hypothesis that GAMP men are bisexual. Indeed, half of one small sample of men with sexual interest in GAMs identified as bisexual (Weinberg & Williams, 2010). However, bisexual men are commonly understood to be sexually attracted to both men and women rather than to GAMs, and so it remains unclear whether men attracted to GAMs tend to be bisexual in the conventional sense.
Ogas & Gaddam (2011) provided one account of GAMP that could explain why it is not uncommon. Based on their analysis of Internet search histories, they concluded that most men looking for GAM pornography are heterosexual and proposed that heterosexual men become aroused by GAM pornography via an 'erotical illusion'. Most heterosexual men find pornography featuring both a man and a woman to be arousing. According to this hypothesis, GAMs incorporate aspects of both members of this scene, and sexual arousal to GAMs is a typical byproduct of male heterosexuality....