[SIZE="2"]“I believe petticoat discipline to be effective, fun, and helpful to society and family. Restraining or scolding is of course necessary; but the lesson I want to teach is how wonderful the nurturing, loving, sensitivity of femininity is! I would rather have my man, boy, or rowdy girl melt into the joys of silks and lace - even if beginning with some force is called for. I surely do not want to teach the ridiculous contradiction that femininity is to be respected so you must be feminine because it is demeaning! Is there really a problem with the "student" learning to love the subject - unless the teacher is afraid to lose her own corrupt, macho, power that is actually the weakness of insecure masculinity?” (from a petticoat discipline website)
Clothes “make” the man, but do they imprison the girl?
Years ago, when I first got access to the Internet, I quite naturally looked for any information about crossdressing, whatever it may be. Sometime during this exploration I bumped into the idea of “petticoat” punishment, whereby mischievous boys (and men) are forcibly made to wear girl’s clothes and the clothes subsequently modify their behavior. I find the concept of punishment via crossdressing to be abhorrent, but I frequent a site or two dedicated to this twisted practice, if only to read a positive story amongst the thinly-veiled tales of domination...
Just the other night I visited a site that trots out a new image of alleged petticoat discipline each month, usually a painting from a time when boys actually did dress like girls, or a photo of an adult woman with a “boy” or two wearing dresses – the latter are actually girls with very short hair, so you need to use your imagination. Looking at the latest depiction of emasculation via crossdressing, I began to wonder about how female clothes actively imprison an otherwise free spirit. Imprison may be a strong word, so one can safely substitute “confine,” which means to restrict, to keep within bounds, or to keep in a limited place or area. Other than the vintage photo I saw (of two “boys” in green smocked dresses flanking their mother/dominatrix), I was further inspired by Julianna Louis’s “Turning boys into girls” thread. Something odd is going on here...
Female clothes have magical powers, both positive and negative, depending on how you look at it, or what side of the “fence” you’re on. To me, wearing female clothing is exhilarating and liberating, even though I am using unmistakable confinement to affect this liberation. Since male clothes are essentially shapeless, colorless and indelicate, wearing something form-fitting, colorful and very delicate can be revelatory if not transcendental. Unlike male clothes, female clothes are somewhat impractical, and I think they are designed to be that way – girls/women/females are meant to be confined (or imprisoned) by their clothing, and they are isolated, kept apart, or their gender roles defined, by the clothes they are supposed to wear...
I know that all females do not “get into” this idea of confinement, if they recognize it, which may explain the more practical male-inspired female garments women wear that some feel are a blatant form of unintentional crossdressing. Imagine going from wearing shorts and a t-shirt to wearing a dress – a highly impractical dress, no less, designed to draw attention to oneself, for reasons of attraction. I see it as a kind of containment vessel, albeit a beautiful, unforced, yet unwanted confinement. The entire female figure is declared and accentuated, including the waist, the shoulders, the bust, the arms and the legs in a highly impractical manner, but what a display! The whole effect is “Here I AM, a woman!” She can do this, in fact she’s expected to embrace this gender-specific imprisonment, but how does SHE feel about it? Her form-fitting garments hug her all over, but are these welcome feelings?
I pay close attention to the relationship females have with their clothing – well, I would, because I’m a MtF crossdresser. I detect sadness here and there, the girl and/or woman being somewhat uncomfortable with her unique possibilities. I recently saw a photo by David Hamilton of a young girl (his specialty), wearing a very pretty white dress with puffy sleeves. This seemed rather discordant amongst his trademark images of soft-focus girls in various stages of undress, but I was attracted to it. Well, it was something I would like to wear! The girl in the photo was rather demure, passive, and self-contained, perhaps self-conscious of her femininity and... dare I say...expectations. Maybe she couldn’t wait to get OUT of her dress, and have some fun! Does she feel uncomfortably confined by the clothes she is expected to wear? I would answer “yes,” in fact clothes of this nature do affect change by their inherent impracticality – you can’t really do anything when you wear them, except maybe dance, float about, or simply look pretty. Oh, to be in this state, but that opinion comes from a distinctly male viewpoint...
With all this in mind, putting girl’s clothes on a boy completely changes the playing field, along with the mindset, especially if behavior is a problem. One moment he blends in with his comrades or playmates, doing as he pleases, and the next minute he is a world apart, hurtled at light speed to a place where nothing FEELS the same - all this because he’s now wearing a dress, something extremely un-masculine and sissified. The waist is up HERE, not down there, his inner thighs are now in contact with each other, his little sleeves are downright effeminate, and the diaphanous fabric of his chemise moves with the slightest breeze. His girly shoes are cute but ridiculous (to him), and he is most likely wearing unfamiliar undergarments that are creating further unknown pressures and/or pleasures. An unruly boy is efficiently emasculated by clothing, and he now knows how the other half feels...
I’ve read many stories whereby the boy is forcibly brought under control by his “petticoat” punishment, a brief imprisonment in clothes he is not supposed to enjoy. I’ve also read a story where a boy undergoes his transformation into a girl, enjoys it, and it becomes a lifelong obsession with an attendant need for domination. My favorite tale involves a boy who is “tamed” by his babysitter via dressing-up, but this is for fun and not used as punishment. However, the boy (now an adult) relates how his overall behavior changed, almost overnight, simply because he was wearing the “wrong” clothes. The boy, or the male, is suppressed (or confined) by wearing female clothing, which leads me to believe that girl’s clothes have this power designed into them, either intentionally or unintentionally. It’s just another wrapper, I suppose, but there’s no doubt in my mind that girl’s clothes have magical attributes – I have felt the difference...
Rather than humiliate or embarrass, girl’s clothing actively suppresses everything I dislike about being male – in effect I’m using confinement as a tool, imprisoning my male self by way of the clothes I like to wear. Call it confinery, a state of mental self-punishment, whereby I become more demure and placid simply by making a few gender-unspecific choices. I’m sure this willingness to submit would make no sense to females, but they may understand the concept of unwanted imprisonment I am referring to – you can see it two ways, if you’re open-minded. When you’ve been on one “side” for so long, you yearn to be on the other side, and tuck your “self” away for reasons that are extremely hard to explain to anyone, including yourself. How can a change of clothing be so amazingly transformative, or how can one person’s imprisonment be another person’s longed-for liberation? The mind boggles, as well it should...
When I was a boy, I was never “punished,” or otherwise imprisoned, by being forced to wear girl’s clothes, which is a pity, I suppose. I mean, I could’ve started crossdressing sooner! I’m sure that if anyone detected the obvious pleasure I derive from dressing as a girl, the REAL punishment would’ve begun!
Don’t you feel sorry for girls (or women) now and then, my fellow MtF’ers?
PS – Referring back to the (psychopathic) quoted text: being feminine is “demeaning?” I don’t think so...[/SIZE]
If you don't like the way I'm livin', you just leave this long haired country girl alone:
- suits for example are worse to me, they restrict my arm movement and unwanted shoulder pads move strangly upward, also such suits hand on my sites and make me bigger. So, well not as bad as corsetts and some ball gowns, but anyway 
Originally Posted by Momarie
