Erotic target identity inversion theory and arousal patterns in macrophilia (Part 1)
A systematic study of macrophilia in a large internet sample of 998 adult macrophiles, investigating arousal patterns and testing erotic target identity inversion theory.
📖 Background
For background on internalized attraction and erotic target identity inversion, read the previous case reports of automacrophilia first.
➤ Introduction
🧟 Macrophilia
Macrophilia is the paraphilia marked by a sexual fascination with giants. Its most frequent manifestation is natal men’s fascination with females who are much larger, a difference in physical size that is almost always surreal. Macrophiles differ in their preferences: some like to imagine they are tiny in size—only a few inches tall—interacting with regular-sized women, while others prefer the women to be of extraordinary, gigantic size. Whatever these preferences may be, the woman is always giant from the man’s point of view and he is always tiny from hers.
It is this relative difference in size that is the crucial element in macrophilia. For the sake of brevity and clarity in this text, I use the words “giant” and “tiny” in this relative sense, meant to encompass all the different size preferences of macrophiles. As such, when I say giant or tiny, I mean that the individual is perceived as such from another’s point of view. When I use these terms without qualification, I do not necessarily mean them in the male sense. When needed, I specify “male giant” or “female giant”, for instance.
In online forums that cater to macrophiles, one encounters individuals who identify as giants, and who interact with macrophiles—in text-based roleplay for example—in the role of giants. These individuals appear to be aroused by the idea of being giant, in contrast to the preferences of most macrophiles of being tiny. Some people think that macrophiles simply come in two varieties: those who like to be tiny and those who like to be giant. If this is true, it would mean that there are two complementary paraphilias: macrophilia for the former, and what could be called microphilia for the latter.
But I was intrigued to test an alternative hypothesis: arousal by the idea of being giant could be an internalized sexual attraction. If this is true, it would mean that all those who prefer the role of giant are actually macrophiles who are also attracted to giants, except that their external attraction is internalized to some extent, allowing them to experience arousal by the idea of being the object of their erotic fascination. I observed this phenomenon—that I call automacrophilia—in the previous case reports I linked above, and I set out to test this hypothesis systematically in a large internet sample, inspired by the recent elaboration of erotic target identity inversion theory in the scientific literature.
📚 Erotic target identity inversion theory
Empirical research has found that in many paraphilias with “unusual” erotic targets, some men who are externally attracted to these targets also develop an internalized form of attraction: they are capable of being aroused by imagining that they are their preferred erotic target. In other words, their arousal becomes directed inward at the self rather than outward at a target perceived as a distinct entity.
In men who have this internalized attraction, a further subset also experiences a certain identification with the erotic target and a sustained desire to become more similar to it: they have an erotic target identity inversion, a phenomenon believed to be caused by the internalized attraction, or at least to share common etiological factors with it.
A formal Erotic Target Identity Inversion (ETII) theory explaining these observations has recently been proposed in a 2023 article by J. Michael Bailey, Kevin J. Hsu, and Henry J. Jang.1 ETII theory is based on empirical work that began with Kurt Freund & Ray Blanchard in the 1990s,2 continued with Anne A. Lawrence in the 2000s,3456 and saw renewed interest by Hsu & Bailey in recent years.78910
According to ETII theory, internalized sexual attraction forms an independent paraphilic dimension that measures the degree to which one’s external attraction—that is, attraction directed at an erotic target perceived as distinct from the self—becomes internalized, confounding the self with the erotic target. When internalized attraction is sufficiently strong, it can manifest in an erotic target identity inversion: an identification with the internal target and a sustained desire to become more similar to it, beyond erotic fantasy.
The most common expression of these phenomena is in men who are gynephilic—that is to say, attracted to women. A subset of them is also aroused by the idea of being women—they have autogynephilia, the internalized form of gynephilia—and a further subset of autogynephilic men also experiences a desire to become women—they have gender dysphoria, the corresponding ETII. The same pattern has been observed in samples of men who are attracted to amputees, children, anthropomorphic animals, real animals, and obese people, in the studies cited above.
ETII theory models these phenomena as follows:
📋 Methods
A short anonymous Google Forms questionnaire was posted on various macrophilia communities on Reddit and on the macrophilia forum GiantessCity, starting from June 6, 2025. The questionnaire was further shared by some macrophiles in other, smaller communities.
The questionnaire collected demographic data, evaluated external attraction to giants and tinies and the frequency of arousal by the idea of being giant and tiny, and asked various questions pertaining to the imitation of, the desire to be, and identification with being giant and tiny. An open space was provided for participants who wished to leave comments.
In the results that follow, all confidence intervals (CI) are calculated at the 95% confidence level and are indicated between brackets.
🗺️ Demographics
The survey collected 1,028 responses in ten days. For ethical reasons, only data from the 998 respondents who indicated an age of 18 or older are considered. All 998 adult respondents reported at least an external attraction to giants or some arousal by the idea of being giant or tiny.
🌐 Region and age
Most of the adult respondents were individuals from North America and Europe in their early adulthood.
🐣 Natal sex
995 of the 998 adult respondents indicated a natal sex:
60 were natal females;
934 were natal males;
1 was intersex.
Assuming that the responses were truthful, that natal male macrophiles are just as likely to frequent online macrophilia communities as their natal male counterparts, and that the sample is representative, then macrophilia appears to be very rare in natal females.
💡 First finding:
In line with observations that paraphilias with unusual erotic targets occur almost exclusively in natal males, this sample of adult macrophiles is predominantly composed of natal males (93.9% [92.2%–95.2%]). Natal females represent only a small minority (6.0% [4.7%–7.7%]).
👤 Gender identity & sexual orientation
Various gender identity labels were grouped into male, female, nonbinary, and miscellaneous identities. Various sexual orientation labels were grouped into attraction to females only, males only, both, or neither (i.e. asexuality).
💡 Second finding:
Compared with the general population, this sample of adult macrophiles has high gender identity variance in natal males (14.8% [12.6%–17.2%]) and even higher variance in natal females (43.3% [31.6%–55.9%]).
It also has high nonheterosexuality relative to natal sex in natal males (36.6% [33.6%–39.8%]) and remarkably more so in natal females (91.7% [81.9%–96.4%]).
👍 Leave a like on this post and tell me your thoughts about it in the comments.
➡️ Next part
In the next part, I delve into the external attraction and internal arousal patterns of macrophiles.
Bailey, J. Michael, Hsu, Kevin J., & Jang, Henry H. (2023). Elaborating and Testing Erotic Target Identity Inversion Theory in Three Paraphilic Samples. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1–19.
Freund, Kurt, & Blanchard, Ray. (1993). Erotic Target Location Errors in Male Gender Dysphorics, Paedophiles, and Fetishists. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 162(4), 558–563.
Lawrence, Anne A. (2006). Clinical and Theoretical Parallels Between Desire for Limb Amputation and Gender Identity Disorder. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 35(3), 263–278.
Lawrence, Anne A. (2009). Parallels between Gender Identity Disorder and Body Integrity Identity Disorder: A Review and Update. In A. Stim, A. Thiel & S. Oddo (Eds.), Body Integrity Identity Disorder: Psychological, Neurobiological, Ethical and Legal Aspects (pp. 154–172), Pabst.
Lawrence, Anne A. (2009). Erotic Target Location Errors: An Underappreciated Paraphilic Dimension. Journal of Sex Research, 46(2-3), 194–215.
Lawrence, Anne A. (2009). Anatomic Autoandrophilia in an Adult Male. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 38, 1050–1056.
Hsu, Kevin J., & Bailey, J. Michael. (2017). Autopedophilia: Erotic-Target Identity Inversions in Men Sexually Attracted to Children. Psychological Science, 28(1), 115–123.
Hsu, Kevin J., & Bailey, J. Michael. (2019). The “Furry” Phenomenon: Characterizing Sexual Orientation, Sexual Motivation, and Erotic Target Identity Inversions in Male Furries. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48, 1349–1369.
Hsu, Kevin J., & Bailey, J. Michael. (2022). Erotic Target Identity Inversions. In D. P. VanderLaan & W. I. Wong (Eds.), Gender and Sexuality Development: Contemporary Theory and Research (pp. 589–612), Springer.
Hsu, Kevin J., & Bailey, J. Michael. (2023). Sexual Orientation, Sexual Motivation, and Erotic Target Identity Inversions in Male Adult Baby/Diaper Lovers. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 52(6), 2385–2401.