My Self Analysis

[Veronica27]

About 60 years ago, when I first began to snoop through my sister's lingerie drawers to find what new sensations I could try on, I believed that I was the only guy in the world doing such things. After all, nobody ever bragged about trying such things, and most guys liked to brag about everything from the size of the fish they caught to how far they went with their girl friend. Eventually I began to read the odd news item about men wearing women's clothing, but it was usually connected with sexual gratification, the excesses of drag presentation, or the preparation for sexual reassignment. I still seemed to be the only guy in the world wanting to crossdress for the reasons that I did.

Then about 25 years ago, after years of trying to suppress my urges, I began to accept my desires as nothing to be ashamed of, even if I was the only guy in the world with these desires, and for the first time in my life, allowed myself to fully crossdress, if only around the house and known only by my wife and I.

Then, along came the internet, and the bios of thousands of crossdressers that proved that I wasn't the only one, but now there seemed to be such a multiplicity of needs, reasons and responses, that every crossdresser seemed to be the only one, at least so far as their "thing" was concerned. Now, when I visit this forum, there are days when I relate totally to much of what I read, and other days when I leave feeling still that I am the only guy in the world doing what I do.

So what is it that I do? I am a man who enjoys being a man, and has never had any desire to be a woman, or wish that I had been born one. Nor do I feel any confusion as to my gender or sex. When I crossdress, I do not feel that I am a woman. My primary interests, with the exception of this one propensity to crossdress, are all ones considered by society to be masculine type interests. So why do I crossdress? After these many years, I have been able to formulate a couple of theories that I believe provide the reasons for my crossdressing.

1. While men and women differ somewhat mentally, because of slight differences in brain structure and hormonal influences, we are more similar than different. Our culture places pressure on men to emphasize the qualities that society considers to be masculine while minimizing many of those qualities that are considered to overlap the feminine side of things. We are expected to be a macho man, when this actually contradicts what every man actually is; a blending of society's concepts of masculinity and femininity. Not allowing ourselves to be ourselves creates stress, and every man finds his own method of dealing with that stress, or suffers the consequences. My method was an accidental discovery 60 years ago, that donning items of female apparel forced me to relax my subconscious instincts to emphasize the macho, and suppress the feminine. It created a strange sense of relaxation, and a desire to keep revisiting that state.

2. Just as men and woman have mental differences and similarities, so too there are a great many physical differences and similarities. The differences form the basis of the attraction between the sexes, and are a major part of the differences in clothing designed for each sex. The awakening awareness of my pubescent interest in and feelings of attraction toward the opposite sex created a sense of curiosity about these clothing differences. Beginning as a desire to simply touch and examine them, it quickly led to wondering what it was like to wear them, and subsequently the feelings of relaxation outlined in point 1.

3. Following the introduction brought about by points 1 and 2, intellectual curiosity took over. What do women experience in life? Can I capture a sense of that by dressing like one from time to time? What does my crossdressing reveal about me? Why is it considered to be such a taboo, when it is one of the most benign activities in which a man can participate; causing no actual harm to himself or anyone else?

To summarize, I crossdress to relax, to expand my knowledge of the overall human experience and to satisfy my curiosity about many things in life. I feel no desire to be a woman, but simply enjoy the attempt to emulate one. There is no release of any "woman within" as some crossdressers claim, but there is a sense of allowing my own natural male "femininity" to be expressed instead of being suppressed as expected by society. My behaviour remains the same regardless of how I dress, as do my interests in life. There is no "alter ego" involved. I do not look upon my dressing as a need, but simply an acquired desire. I also do not consider that I was born to be or destined to be a crossdresser, but simply became one as a result of my enhanced level of curiosity and interest in life.

Am I alone, or can any others relate to my "type" of crossdressing?

Veronica

[Shari]

Very enlightening thread Veronica.
My life and times of crossdressing are very similar and in most cases mirror yours.
The only real differences are that over half of the time, my dressing leads to sexual gratification. Also, there are times when I'm dressed that I actually fancy myself a real woman.
I would differ in the fact that dressing has not really given me any further insight into how a woman thinks or feels.
The whole experience is always both relaxing and thrilling and completes me.

[RADER]

Veronica;
You must have read my thoughts very well. I also have the same feelings of not wanting
to change my sex, nor do I have the desire to live 24/7 as a woman.
I am married to a real great woman, I totally enjoy being with her, as a man.
The desire to dress, Well I have had that since forever, and now that I am retired, I have
the time to do it.
Like you said, I dress to relax, and for a brief moment, try to capture what a woman feels wearing
their clothes. I have no sexual gratification for wearing dresses, just the desire to get into
the feel of what a girl must be feeling. I am not sure if I am saying this correctly, I hope you
understand what I mean.
I like girls, they are a very nice invention, and are fun to play with. I just like to feel like a girl
from time to time. I do not want to be with a man when I am dressed, the whole idea of that
repulses me.
Rader

[Mollyanne]

I read and re-read your thread and then sat back to digest what was written. I guess the bottom line to everything is that all of us have our "special" needs or desires to be fulfilled from time to time. I crossdress because it makes me feel good, different, I like the clothing(all of it) and wish that I was born female instead of male. But we all have our "needs", I guess that will sum it up, for me anyway.

Molly

[Tina B.]

I'm one of those that feel a deep compulsion that drives me to dress, or suffer mental consequences, such as depression, so no I don't relate to your reasons to dress, I've always felt like if I wasn't driven to dress, I would be very happy living as a guy full time, but then I would have been happy as a women, but too need to jump back and forth, was nothing I ever asked for or wanted. It is what it is, and I stopped fighting it years ago, and have even learned to embrace it, but I never sought it out as something that I would do because it was fun, I did it because I need to, to Maintain a sense of peace within me.
Tina B.

[Foxglove]

Hi, Veronica! Very interesting post, especially for me since I used to have my own theory about myself. Well, that theory went down in flames a while back, but I'm always interested in seeing how others view themselves.

In your self-analysis it seems to me there's a bit of tension. I think it's raised three main questions for me. First this:




Our culture places pressure on men to emphasize the qualities that society considers to be masculine while minimizing many of those qualities that are considered to overlap the feminine side of things. We are expected to be a macho man, when this actually contradicts what every man actually is; a blending of society's concepts of masculinity and femininity. Not allowing ourselves to be ourselves creates stress, and every man finds his own method of dealing with that stress, or suffers the consequences. My method was an accidental discovery 60 years ago, that donning items of female apparel forced me to relax my subconscious instincts to emphasize the macho, and suppress the feminine. It created a strange sense of relaxation, and a desire to keep revisiting that state.

I'd say first of all I agree that society expects guys to be "masculine", but not necessarily "macho". What do we mean by "macho"? I always think of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, and if that's what we mean by the word, then I'd say, yes, there's probably lots of guys who are pressured to be macho, but lots have no pressure of that sort on them whatsoever. I look back on my young years, the guys that I hung out with, and I'm hard-pressed to think of one who came even close to Wayne/Eastwood. I certainly had no pressure of that sort on me.

On the other hand, I have a neighbor, a young lad, who walks just like a woman. It's only his narrow hips that give him away. If he had wider hips and you saw him walking from the back, you'd have no doubt that you were seeing a woman. That's the sort of thing society doesn't like, and I wonder how much flak he's taken for it in his time.

But what I'm really getting to here is this point: We are expected to be a macho man, when this actually contradicts what every man actually is; a blending of society's concepts of masculinity and femininity. You're saying that a man is actually a blend of society's concepts of masculinity and femininity, and that's where I run into difficulties.

Take two guys that I've known personally: my son, who enjoys cooking, and a guy I knew as a teenager who liked to sew. He made a type of shorts called "baggies" back then and sold them. Now I think we can agree that society has long defined cooking and sewing as feminine activities--but is that how these two guys see things?

When my son cooks, does he see himself as doing something feminine? And when my friend was sewing, did he see himself as doing something feminine? In both cases, knowing these lads as I do/did, I would emphatically say no. That is, they're not expressing anything feminine--despite the fact that these two pursuits are probably still largely done by women. We're just talking about two guys who like to cook and sew.

Which is to say that an individual doesn't necessarily agree with "society's concepts". Those concepts are simply irrelevant to them. So regardless of what society says, we don't have to regard men as a blend of masculine and feminine. If a man likes to cook, then we don't have to say that cooking is either masculine or feminine. Cooking is just cooking.

So if you're talking about a man feeling some stress because he's doing something that society regards as feminine, it's not necessarily so. I don't know that my son has ever felt stress because of his cooking, because as far as I know nobody's ever pressured him to stop. Nor did any of us teens ever pressure my buddy to stop sewing. We knew it was unusual, but we didn't hassle him because (1) he was the nicest, coolest guy you ever met and (2) he was making money at it. So I don't think that this stress that you say a guy must feel is a foregone conclusion.

If a guy is doing something society regards as feminine, he may or may not come under pressure, he may or may not feel some stress, depending on his peers. But that pressure or stress doesn't come from within him. There's no automatic tension that he has a need to relieve.

And so I get to this point:


I feel no desire to be a woman, but simply enjoy the attempt to emulate one. There is no release of any "woman within" as some crossdressers claim, but there is a sense of allowing my own natural male "femininity" to be expressed instead of being suppressed as expected by society. My behaviour remains the same regardless of how I dress, as do my interests in life. There is no "alter ego" involved.

It seems to me you're saying on the one hand that there's no "woman within", that is, there's no femininity in you. But on the other hand, you're saying that you're expressing your own "natural male femininity". So I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here. Do you have some femininity or not?

I think we can resolve this by saying that perhaps you generally agree with what I've said above: that a guy can do even traditionally female things without that implying that he's feminine in any way. But since you talk of "natural male femininity", you yourself accept society's definitions of what is male and what is female, and that's why you personally feel some stress. That is, you're going along with both ideas at the same time.

I'm just speculating here about what's going on in your mind. Obviously I can't know for sure. Maybe you can clarify the point if you think it worth the trouble.

And my last question is, "Why crossdressing?" Lots of guys may feel the sort of tension around the same age you did, but very few of them get into CDing. They may get interested in women's clothing, but only insofar as they see it on girls. If they want to relieve stress, they may do it via dating, dancing, sports, or perhaps, with less approval, drinking, joy-riding, etc. Very few guys are drawn to women's clothing in the way we are.

Just a few points your very fine post raised in my mind. Sorry for being so long-winded.

Best wishes, Annabelle

[Veronica27]

Hi Annabelle

When I composed this thread, I was trying to be as concise as possible, and as a result knew that I was probably leaving myself open to some questions. I will try to answer what I feel are your questions, but the subject is one about which I could write an entire book were I so inclined, and had the time.

You asked what I meant by "macho". It is probably a bad choice of word, but my opinion is that concepts such as masculinity and femininity are virtually meaningless. They mean whatever any particular person wants them to mean, and collectively they mean whatever a given culture wants them to mean. This can vary from era to era and society to society. I was simply using the word macho for emphasis as it is a term commonly used to describe guys trying to be as much of a man as possible.

As you pointed out, the real point here is my statement that every man is a blending of society's concepts of masculinity and femininity. Every person, male or female, possesses their own personality and character. They possess qualities such as feelings, emotions, behaviours and interests that form a part of a much larger collection of such qualities that comprise what is commonly called human nature. A few of these qualities are more common to males while a few others are more common to females. This is largely because of hormonal influences, and their impact on brain development. They are further enforced by our culture through training and education. However, the vast majority of these qualities are not necessarily more prevalent in either sex. Society likes to categorize everything and over time, many of these "neutral" human qualities become differentiated as being related to one sex more than the other, and hence are added to society's concepts of masculinity and femininity. What I was stating is that men are expected to concentrate on that concept of masculinity, when in reality they are their own blending of many of both the masculine and feminine qualities as dictated by society.

The stress that I feel men are under is not the result of doing so called "feminine" things, but rather is the result of feeling confined by the expectations of always having to do the so called "masculine" things, and being required to meet all his male responsibilities. We have to conform to certain standards of appearance, behaviour and mannerisms, regardless of what we are doing, and that conformity creates a need for a "break". Every man finds his own way of accomplishing this. It may be something like being a complete slob every weekend, getting overly involved in a sport or hobby, cooking the meals, looking after the kids or it could even be dressing up like a woman. For most men, the escapes may simply involve appearance or perhaps type of activity while remaining within the realm of "masculinity", while for others it may require delving into the "femininity" side of things in one way or another.

By natural male femininity, I am saying nothing more than what I have outlined above. Even though society calls certain things "feminine", they are nothing more than human nature, and can be possessed by men or women. As men, we are taught to suppress or ignore certain qualities that we may possess because they are thought to be "feminine", but when we escape from the confines of our male conformity, regardless of what method we choose, we usually permit ourselves access to those otherwise suppressed qualities. This is particularly true of crossdressers.

My original post may have been confusing, because of the need to use the words masculine and feminine. To me they are just the artifical segregation of human nature into its male and female components by society. I do not agree with that differentiation, despite the fact that for most of my life I felt the pressure to conform to society's concept of masculinity. It was expected by family, schools, employers and friends. I never felt that I was anything but a man, have no desire to be a woman, and do not actually feel that I am a woman or am releasing a "woman within" when I crossdress. I simply derive an immense feeling of relaxation and adventure by escaping from the monotony of my normal male existence. I "pretend" to be a woman by emulation, as opposed to becoming one, or releasing an "inner woman".

I have discussed the topic of gender in other threads so did not want to get involved in that subject here other than to say that as its meaning is the classification of things as masculine and feminine, two somewhat meaningless terms, gender itself is meaningless, at least as it is now commonly used.

I hope this answers your questions.

Veronica

[Foxglove]

Hi, Veronica! I well understand the problem of trying to be concise. I tend to be a bit long-winded myself, and if your posts are too long, then people might not bother reading them.

At any rate, I think you've outlined your ideas much more clearly here. And frankly, I'd go along, broadly speaking with what you're saying here. The only point I'd make is that I think this essay might be more applicable to us CD/TG people than to cisgender people. If cisgender people feel it's applicable to them as well, it would be up to them to say so.

We're talking about society's perceptions of certain characteristics, activities, etc. And society may put pressure on people in various ways, but, as I said before, I'm not sure that everybody personally agrees with society's perceptions. And I think this is an important point, because, as we CD/TG people often emphasize, one's perception of oneself is all-important.

To take a common example, a man is pressured to work long hours to support his family. Now obviously he will get tired at times and want a break. Now it depends on the man and how he perceives himself: does he see himself in need of a break from the role society has imposed on him, or does he simply need a break from work? And say that when he takes that break, he cooks a meal, that is, he gets into something that society normally regards as feminine. Does this mean he feels a need to express some "feminine side" of himself? It depends on how he perceives himself.

I can go along with you when you say that "masculine" and "feminine" are to a great extent artificial constructs, given that there are such great differences between individual men and individual women. And so a man doesn't necessarily view his work as masculine and his cooking as feminine. He's just doing a couple of things that he does. That is to say, that a cisgender man doesn't necessarily feel the tension in his personality that we do. For me, there's a strong divide in my mind between my drab activities and my fem activities. But cisgender people don't necessarily feel the tension that I do or the tension that you've said you've always felt.

I think that I'm having trouble here articulating what I want to say. A cisgender man might want a break from his usual role, and a cisgender woman might want a break from her usual role. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he feels he needs a break from his masculinity or that she needs a break from her femininity--especially given that we're agreeing that the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" are vague anyway. In any case, this is a question that I as a TG person can't answer. What does a cisgender man feel, what does a cisgender woman feel? I can only say what I feel.

Thanks for an interesting thread, Veronica. You've given me a great deal to think about, because, as you can no doubt tell, I'm not entirely clear in my mind about my own ideas here.

Best wishes, Annabelle