Is crossdressing " healthy"?

[docrobbysherry]

This is a follow up to another thread. This thread is aimed at CD's. Because TS's and TG's, etc. obviously feel dressing as a women, is natural. While CD's may dress for purient, fetish, or other related excitement reasons. I've read many posts about " guilt". Let's get to the heart of your guilt. Which I have, too.

My guilt comes from the feeling that my CDing is unhealthy for me, that it takes up too much of my time. I feel like I'm a 5 year old with a gallon of ice cream and no one around! I don't think that it is wrong, or a sin, or that I'm hurting anyone.

What causes your CD guilt? Do u think CDing is unhealthy for u? Here's your chance to dig deep and purge!
RS

[Joy Carter]

Interesting question. I can say I have shed the guilt I carried for years over this, now that I'm able to dress, and go out main stream. But I have come to the realization, that I could be happy as a woman, and would be a good candidate for transitioning. Now I struggle with knowing that I can't.

[Mixie]

Hmm, I think it is healthy for me right now, because I feel better while I'm doing my day to day drudgery, knowing I've got an exotic secret at home. But if I weren't from out of town, if I hadn't just moved here, and if I had close relations from who I was hiding my habbit, then I would feel guilty, because I hate feeling like I'm hiding anything from my friends and family. I honestly believe that this opportunity to get in touch with my femme side is doing my psyche and personality a world of good right now. I'm becoming more centered with the creature that I actually am.

But if there were people who I was close with, I wouldn't feel as good. And if my cd'ing begins to interfere with my ability to create new friendships, then it will start to feel unhealthy again, too. And I'm worried it might.

[Violetgray]

I think that in most cases, the guilt comes from going against our social programming. We are taught that crossing gender boundaries is wrong, that boys or supposed to be boys. The sexes are crystallized into absolute definitions, and going outside the lines takes getting used to.

Also, hiding it from your loved ones might have something to do with it also.

[Mixie]

Yah, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one, Violetgray.

[kimberly ann487]

I agree with Violet not being truthfull with the ones closest to us makes for guilt. That big step of coming to the moment of truth is very difficult to say the least.
KIM

[Joanne f]

If there is some thing that you want to do or like doing, providing that it hurts no one else then it has to be healthy for you as happiness go`s a long way to helping you to be healthy.

joanne

[Ruth]

I got a big pay-off in terms of psychological peace and physical well-being when I came out to my wife, so CDing has turned out to be a healthy option. But there again the stress of hiding my true feelings all the time has gone.
Either way the result is healthy.

[helenr]

I am 61, have been crossdressing since about age 6-7. Naturally this has changed from a quicky to get satisfaction, to a calmer approach to crossdressing. I no longer get any physical 'kicks' from crossdressing, but I am always enfemme underneath and at night.
I think that my entire perspective on this swung 180 degrees when I start taking anti-androgens to negate the harmful effects I felt from testosterone. I am far calmer, don't feel the same 'fetish' guilt I had for years. I don't view myself as a candidate for SRS for a number of reasons but am happy as a 'neutral' for want of better expressions. The loss of libido has killed some of the fun of getting prettied up--what is the point as I simply dress underneath (have to present as a male) as it seems correct to do so. I don't care to try to pass and all the energy required to attempt to accomplish this is more than I wish to expend. I have wondered if the fetish aspect that most younger crossdressing includes isn't a bit like the mental high from nicotene that smokers enjoy--something to do with brain endorphins? best wishes to all in this discussion, helenr in CO

[Deborah Jane]

I think that in most cases, the guilt comes from going against our social programming. We are taught that crossing gender boundaries is wrong, that boys or supposed to be boys. The sexes are crystallized into absolute definitions, and going outside the lines takes getting used to.

Also, hiding it from your loved ones might have something to do with it also.

I agree. That about sums it up for me too!! Since i,ve been single again i,ve lost the guilt and no longer get stressed out so easy, also i know longer care about gender boundries...After all, you only live once..Maybe!!

[Marla S]

Healthy or not depends on what you make out of it IMO.

Guilt and/or shame is always a sign that something is going wrong with your relation to the society and their standards. The opposite, total ignorance of the society, isn't good either though.

If one is able to find the fine line between guilt and ignorance, I am convinced CDing is healthy, because it's freedom and joy for your soul.

To get this fine line is the tricky part, and it will depend on a lot of outer and inner constrains.
You will have to give something to get this freedom and you will have to make compromises with yourself and the society.

[obsessedwithpantyhose]

its very healthy for me,,,

took me many longs years to get over the catholic upbringing and guilt that came along with it over my just wearing pantyhose when i was younger all do to how my mom reacted when she caught me, u would have thought i had kill the family dog with how she over reacted, sendin me to shrinks and the parish priest all because i like how panthose felt on me,, i never showd any same sex intrests,, i luv women......

as far as who knows,, well EVERYONE does, and i dont care anymore because u only live once so make the best of it

p.s. as im typing this im painting my fingers a nice sparkly pink

[bobbi(CO)]

I don't know about healhy but it sure is fun! Oh and I have a date with a local gent, hope to find out if I can carry this a little farther.

[Nicole Erin]

p.s. as im typing this im painting my fingers a nice sparkly pink

Why not just paint the nails?

ANYways, I don't think CD'ing is unhealthy. It just is what it is.

What is healthy or unhealthy is what a person does in femme mode.

Guilt? I don't have any guilt, I just don't show or talk about my CD'ing with those wo don't need to know

[SiobhanW]

Why not just paint the nails?

ROTFLMAO!

I carry some guilt about the possibility of making my wife uncomfortable. It's what stops me from sometimes subjecting her to seeing me in femme attire, and certainly what stops me from going fully dressed. My wife has never seen me in a wig or makeup, and has never seen me with breast forms in my bra. She might be OK with all those things, but I don't want to push against those perceived boundaries.

However, what I've noticed of late is that she's becoming more accepting, so who knows. As long as she knows that it doesn't change who I am, and how I feel about her, perhaps it's all OK? One of these days I really need to find out - the angst I feel might all be for nought!

[SiobhanW]

Update: I went ahead and filled out my bra on Saturday and she either didn't notice or wasn't concerned about it. Come to think of it she may have thought it "normal" to see a bra filled (like any of this is normal, LOL!)

[jennifer41356]

No guilt, no belief in unhealthy...I love being a girl and spending as much time as a girl..Life is too short to worry about guilty feelings

I am happy living alone and hanging out with my friends who know me and like me as Jennifer. I feel i missed so many years, my teens, my twenties, trying to be something I am not and toeing the line...

If I could afford hormones and get some hair regrowth, i would go fulltime

[Eugenie]

My life has been bogged down by guilt up until just a few years ago

Yet I was no hiding my x-dressing, I had told my wife almost imediately after our wedding.

It wasn't that I felt that x-dressing was unhealthy, it was just that I knew my wife was unhappy about it and yet I couldn't stop for doing it.

But finaly I've come to accept who I am thanks to discussion forums and to two great women who have made me become who I am now. Then after coming out to a person whom I highly respect and getting her total support "You are doing no arm to anybody. An you look pretty nice...", tha really gave me an almost total confidence that there cross-dressing was healthy and that there was no reason to feel guilty.

This change in attitude from guilt to self acceptance has caused some difficult moments in our couple when it started 4 years ago, but in the end, my own acceptance triggered a much better acceptance by my wife. She's not fully happy about it but has come to accept that this was extremely important and she told me that.

What's unhealthy about X-dressing is when you think it is unhealthy... That can really get one to feel bad to the point of becoming ill...


Eugenie

[jennydl]

I have figured out who/what I am so I no longer feel guilty and as such,feel it is healthy for me.what wasn't healthy for me was cding so much that I didn't do anything else.I let it take over my life.I'm sort of like that with everything I do,full speed ahead,then okay whats next.for me,finding a balance was all that it took.doing a little bit of everything instead of a lot of one thing.
jenny

[obsessedwithpantyhose]

these r just my thoughts mind u.............im wondering if the women in our lives would rather us crossdress or be drunks and beat them on a daily basis........or out molesting people.......or having affairs.........or killing people..........or selling/doing drugs............. i know cding doesnt stand up to those other offences but u get my point (i hope)

[Melissa A.]

I Don't feel any guilt, and I don't care who knows. That wasn't always the case, but it is now. No guilt. No fear. Just fun.

Hugs,

Melissa

[NovaScotia]

Now that I have been out in public, found a mentor in my sister and come out to my wife, my stress has diminished, weight lost and all around a happier person. Oh, I forgot starting anger management therepy, too; but I think a lot of my anger left when I opened the closet door! Not guilty!

[Ashley Williams]

I think that in most cases, the guilt comes from going against our social programming. We are taught that crossing gender boundaries is wrong, that boys or supposed to be boys. Also, hiding it from your loved ones might have something to do with it also.

I can empathise very much with this aspect. Initially in my early teens I got a huge buzz out of dressing in silky underwear and went through a stage in my late teens where I turned myself on so much that I was masturbating three or four times a day for days on end.

Definitely not healthy.

From then I settled into occasional underdressing but due to changes of circumstance sometimes was able to indulge in a whole weekend dressed in nothing but silky undies - but then that was pretty lonely too.

Coming out to friends and colleagues when I was in my twenties/thirties did nothing to assuage the guilt - all but a very few were repulsed by it.

Fast forward, and over the last six months have been under-dressing again almost f/t but absolutely hated the secrecy from my wife.

Now I have told her and the atmosphere is awful just now. Ironically, despite my regret at not having told her earlier (was in major purge phase when we met), now feel that I have some rights in this too.

I didn't choose these urges and I just love the feeling of a micro-fibre slip and knickers(panties) on my skin. Now it is not enough either, and with a support group only a few miles away I am determined to express myself more fully in this way.

I am trying not to hurt my wife any more than I have to - but the guilt is still there. Work in progress, I think is the best phrase.

[Dawn Marie]

In my early stages of CDing I always had guilt. I wasn't sure if I was sick or mentally ill or what. I had no one to talk to about it , there was no internet. I purged so many times back then, it makes me whince just to think about all that I had lost.
It took me a long time to come to terms with my feelings and to like myself for who I was. But I still could not tell my family and only a few selected friends. That again comes the guilt. I am no longer ashamed of myself by what I do but I still have stress about it because I had to hide it so long from my wife of ten years.
Over all I would have to say that it was healthy for me. It gave me a chance to get in touch with feelings that I had bottled up inside and it helped me relieve some of the stress in my life.

[madeline_tate]

I think the guilt largely stems from the secrecy that we often to have keep in order to dress. I know that's what it is for me at least.

I hate having to hide it from my girlfriend and other close friends, and I have certainly felt more liberated and at ease after coming clean to others.

All in all, crossdressing is not evil or wrong by any definition except archaic religious dogma. The only problem lies in, as mentioned before, arbitrary gender roles that have been defined for us by society.