But almost anything coded female or feminine, she writes, can cause an ‘intense, perplexing, shame-inducing erotic arousal that seems to simultaneously animate and discredit [autogynephiles’] desires to have female bodies’. Her informants recount erotic fantasies of pushing a baby buggy, joining a knitting circle, being called ‘ma’am’, having bubble-gum-blowing contests with girls, wearing clip-on earrings, taking birth-control pills, having a Pap smear test, and so on and on.
