Frédérique
09-13-2010, 08:15 AM
I’ve been reading Bisexualities (by editors Heaberle and Gindorf), a 20 year-old book, mainly to find the inevitable kind of references to crossdressing such a book always provides. One chapter of the book consists wholly of definitions or historical facts regarding the terminology of bisexuality, and it was compiled by John Money, an eminent sexologist. Let’s see – is there anything about transvestites?
“Transvest, the verb that derives from the Latin meaning to cross-dress, existed in 1652, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and had a theatrical meaning of dressing or disguising in other garments, for example, those of the other sex. The nouns transvestite and transvestism are not even entered in the O.E.D. According to Havelock Ellis (1936), they were coined as sexological terms my Magnus Hirschfeld, who used them in 1910 in his book "Die Transvestiten." Hirschfeld distinguished transvestism from the sexual inversion (already at that time named homosexuality) under the rubric it had formerly been subsumed. On the criterion of whether a transvestite was erotically attracted to a male or female partner, Hirschfeld subdivided transvestism into four subtypes: heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, and asexual. To these he added a fifth subtype, the narcissistic, in which femininity enhances a man’s masculinity.”
More on that later, but I should explain that Magnus Hirschfeld, Berlin “physician for nervous disorder,” was a pioneer of homosexual re-thinking back in the late 19th century. From the abovementioned book:
“According to Hirschfeld, in real life there was nothing but a large spectrum of intermediate stages between the “total man” and the “total woman.” In the actual world, most people fell somehow between these extremes, in their anatomy as well as in their psychology. It was thus no wonder that there were masculine as well as effeminate homosexuals and heterosexuals. In either case, in fact in almost all cases, one was simply dealing with natural variations such as had to be expected among living creatures.” There’s more…
“Curiously enough, it was to be Hirschfeld’s fate as a researcher to discover and name a sexologically new category of human beings – the transvestites. These were men and women who preferred to dress in the clothes of the other sex and to mimic that sex in speech and gesture as well. Unexpectedly, though, a great many of these very effeminate men and masculine women felt an erotic inclination to the other sex; indeed, many of them were married and wanted to remain so.”
John Money, the gentleman I mentioned in the first paragraph, also came up with a conceptual system in regards to bisexuality, a “magic formula” called “Nature-Critical Phase-Culture,” an attempt to understand behavior rather than classify individuals one way or another by “gender cross-coding.”
In his accompanying chart (in the book), non-fetishistic transvestism is classified as “episodic or alternating” gender cross-coding, and fetishistic transvestism, also episodic, is referred to as transvestophilia, a type of TOTAL gender cross-coding, just a shade below the “continuous” version of the same, namely transexualism. There is also a term I’ve never heard before – gynemimesis (imitation of women or woman-miming). This term, just like transvestophilia, describes a concept distinguishable from “simple” transvestism, according to the author. It gets very complicated, but they had to start somewhere, in a bold attempt to point out subtle differences…
So, I’m wondering – am I afflicted with transvestophilia? Let’s see – I worship my female clothes as fetish objects, since I believe in their magical powers AND I am irrationally devoted to them. They do not imbue me with erotic feelings, but I am engaged in an ongoing imitation of women. Am I a simple transvestite, or something…more? As crossdressers, we all wear our fetish objects – some worship panties, some love nylons, ditto heels, makeup, or…everything all together. I worship skirts and everything that looks or feels good WITH them (or under them), in fact simply wearing a skirt makes me feel extraordinary in ways I cannot describe! I believe in their power to heal, so I must be a transvestophiliac – indeed, when is transvestism not fetishistic (to some degree)? This is why I make a distinction between more casual crossdressing and transvestism, even though in most people’s minds they are one and the same, depending on what country you’re from, of course…
I’m not puzzled or taken aback by these somewhat antiquated (but accurate) classifications, but the idea of narcissism, where femininity somehow enhances masculinity (see above), is difficult for me to grasp. Can we, as men, be brave, virile, and strong, all the attributes of manliness, yet somehow improve on it by embracing femininity? Yes, I believe in this, but wouldn’t masculinity be modified out of existence? How about replacing the masculine with the feminine, if only for short time each day, or, better still, why not combine the two, the sum of two disconnected halves, and simply become…different? Can you somehow be brave, yet reserved; strong, yet not assertive; virile, yet yielding, listening, and understanding? I’m doing just that, I suppose, but the female dominates the proceedings…
Why type all this? Well, whenever I encounter a thread along the lines of “Since I’m a crossdresser, I must be (blank),” I wonder if the author of that post realizes that someone has done research that contradicts the pigeon-holing one may encounter in this day and age. It’s OK, and you’re just part of the colorful spectrum that crossdressing merely hints at – you aren’t specifically one thing or another, and reality is infinitely more subtle. Just please enjoy your crossdressing adventure and don’t dwell on how others see you or categorize you – most outsiders are incapable of anything but polarized viewpoints, but YOU are different. Excuse me – I have to put the word processor away and don my magic female garments tout de suite…
:battingeyelashes:
“Transvest, the verb that derives from the Latin meaning to cross-dress, existed in 1652, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and had a theatrical meaning of dressing or disguising in other garments, for example, those of the other sex. The nouns transvestite and transvestism are not even entered in the O.E.D. According to Havelock Ellis (1936), they were coined as sexological terms my Magnus Hirschfeld, who used them in 1910 in his book "Die Transvestiten." Hirschfeld distinguished transvestism from the sexual inversion (already at that time named homosexuality) under the rubric it had formerly been subsumed. On the criterion of whether a transvestite was erotically attracted to a male or female partner, Hirschfeld subdivided transvestism into four subtypes: heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, and asexual. To these he added a fifth subtype, the narcissistic, in which femininity enhances a man’s masculinity.”
More on that later, but I should explain that Magnus Hirschfeld, Berlin “physician for nervous disorder,” was a pioneer of homosexual re-thinking back in the late 19th century. From the abovementioned book:
“According to Hirschfeld, in real life there was nothing but a large spectrum of intermediate stages between the “total man” and the “total woman.” In the actual world, most people fell somehow between these extremes, in their anatomy as well as in their psychology. It was thus no wonder that there were masculine as well as effeminate homosexuals and heterosexuals. In either case, in fact in almost all cases, one was simply dealing with natural variations such as had to be expected among living creatures.” There’s more…
“Curiously enough, it was to be Hirschfeld’s fate as a researcher to discover and name a sexologically new category of human beings – the transvestites. These were men and women who preferred to dress in the clothes of the other sex and to mimic that sex in speech and gesture as well. Unexpectedly, though, a great many of these very effeminate men and masculine women felt an erotic inclination to the other sex; indeed, many of them were married and wanted to remain so.”
John Money, the gentleman I mentioned in the first paragraph, also came up with a conceptual system in regards to bisexuality, a “magic formula” called “Nature-Critical Phase-Culture,” an attempt to understand behavior rather than classify individuals one way or another by “gender cross-coding.”
In his accompanying chart (in the book), non-fetishistic transvestism is classified as “episodic or alternating” gender cross-coding, and fetishistic transvestism, also episodic, is referred to as transvestophilia, a type of TOTAL gender cross-coding, just a shade below the “continuous” version of the same, namely transexualism. There is also a term I’ve never heard before – gynemimesis (imitation of women or woman-miming). This term, just like transvestophilia, describes a concept distinguishable from “simple” transvestism, according to the author. It gets very complicated, but they had to start somewhere, in a bold attempt to point out subtle differences…
So, I’m wondering – am I afflicted with transvestophilia? Let’s see – I worship my female clothes as fetish objects, since I believe in their magical powers AND I am irrationally devoted to them. They do not imbue me with erotic feelings, but I am engaged in an ongoing imitation of women. Am I a simple transvestite, or something…more? As crossdressers, we all wear our fetish objects – some worship panties, some love nylons, ditto heels, makeup, or…everything all together. I worship skirts and everything that looks or feels good WITH them (or under them), in fact simply wearing a skirt makes me feel extraordinary in ways I cannot describe! I believe in their power to heal, so I must be a transvestophiliac – indeed, when is transvestism not fetishistic (to some degree)? This is why I make a distinction between more casual crossdressing and transvestism, even though in most people’s minds they are one and the same, depending on what country you’re from, of course…
I’m not puzzled or taken aback by these somewhat antiquated (but accurate) classifications, but the idea of narcissism, where femininity somehow enhances masculinity (see above), is difficult for me to grasp. Can we, as men, be brave, virile, and strong, all the attributes of manliness, yet somehow improve on it by embracing femininity? Yes, I believe in this, but wouldn’t masculinity be modified out of existence? How about replacing the masculine with the feminine, if only for short time each day, or, better still, why not combine the two, the sum of two disconnected halves, and simply become…different? Can you somehow be brave, yet reserved; strong, yet not assertive; virile, yet yielding, listening, and understanding? I’m doing just that, I suppose, but the female dominates the proceedings…
Why type all this? Well, whenever I encounter a thread along the lines of “Since I’m a crossdresser, I must be (blank),” I wonder if the author of that post realizes that someone has done research that contradicts the pigeon-holing one may encounter in this day and age. It’s OK, and you’re just part of the colorful spectrum that crossdressing merely hints at – you aren’t specifically one thing or another, and reality is infinitely more subtle. Just please enjoy your crossdressing adventure and don’t dwell on how others see you or categorize you – most outsiders are incapable of anything but polarized viewpoints, but YOU are different. Excuse me – I have to put the word processor away and don my magic female garments tout de suite…
:battingeyelashes: