Jenny85
02-24-2014, 09:38 AM
I apologize again for the wall of text and I realize that none of you are here to be my therapist.
So, amusingly, one year ago today I took the plunge and registered on this site to try to figure out what I was. I read the responses, replied a little, and promptly left. I have frequented the site on occasion, but mostly stayed to the CD section as I didn't feel I belonged here.
In case anyone is interested, this is the forum post from a year ago.
http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?190677-What-am-I&highlight=jenny85
I went through and reread my posts and realized I may have simplified a few of my views. More on that later.
Even a year later I am still only beginning to scratch the surface, I suspect, of who I am. To do a super short summary from the previous post, I was trying to figure out if I was TS or a guy who could not deal with being bisexual.
I believe now that I may be a bisexual TS. Though to be fair this belief is one that I have come to very recently and as such should be scrutinized.
In the posts I talked about concern that this interest mainly, I suspected, presented itself in the context of sexual fantasy. I said when I first learned about sex, by finding my father's porn stash, I related to the woman on screen. I forgot to mention this happened when I was 10 years old and at that time had very little idea how to view these thoughts. I was attracted to both the people on screen. That didn't seem wrong to me at the time, but as I grew up with my father in Texas I learned to never express interest in anything other than women.
I internalized some very bad things. Only now, after posting last year and considering things in several new lights, do I come to the semi-obvious conclusion that I am bisexual. This was hard for me to decide. I was looking at men through the same lens as I would look at women. For me, most women are at least somewhat attractive, or at the very least there is something to find attractive about almost any woman. This does not hold true to men. Most men to me are not attractive at all. This was hard for me to understand since, in the context of my sexual fantasies with me as a woman, almost any man would do. I realized this comes from porn. On screen I can believe that the man is anyone or anything I want. It is an image, or a video, that I can apply a background to. I can ignore things I don't like and imagine things I do. Especially if the pic or vid excludes most of the man and instead focuses on the lower half. When I removed any sort of assumption of myself as female, I found I am far pickier and selective in what I find attractive in a man. BUT, I do find some men attractive and would have sex with the right man.
One problem solved... probably the easy one.
To properly address the question of whether or not I'm TS I had to remove the sexual fantasy and desires from it and view myself in a nonsexual context. I believe it's hard for me to remove gender from sexuality because I grew up in an area that made absolutely no distinction for men. If you were a man, you had sex with women and that was IT. Though to be fair to my upbringing, if you were female you could do whatever you wanted. Having mostly removed the sexual aspect, the question remained, how do you decide if you are TS?
In rereading my post from a year ago to see how my feelings had changed, I realized I over simplified one thing that stuck out to me like a clear sign that I was not. I put forth that I did not have any issues with being a man and that I enjoyed the games of being a man and trying to be the alpha male in a group. That is not quite true. What I should have said is, I don't have a problem with people treating me like a man, because I look and act like one. The games of being a man, in my mind, are intellectual. I enjoyed being able to convince people that I was a manly man and an alpha male, though people who knew me knew this was not the case in most regards. I feel like I am succeeding in some great made up game whenever I convince people that I really am a man. I suppose I enjoyed the knowledge that if I had to, I could use what I looked like and how people treated me to be exactly what they expected. It's also worth noting that my competition for manliest man in the bunch usually is not very extreme. I would rarely ever compete when it was obvious that I would not win. Most activities that would be considered manly are of no interest to me and I despise the fact that most people think I must be into cars or sports. What I consider to be the man game and trying to be alpha male usually has more to do with confidence and knowledge and manipulation of social expectations than any actual physical displays or chest bumping. Also to be fair, this is mostly an in the past thing, as in, most of my fond memories of playing the game are from college and what little time I spent in the very manly occupation of the oil field.
In rereading the paragraph above I realize that may or may not actually change the meaning.
Basically, I still don't know if I'm trans but I suspect that most people who do not fall anywhere inside the classification at all do not spend nearly as much time thinking about gender identities as I have, and that tends to lend credence in my mind that I'm somewhere in the spectrum. For a period of about two weeks I had decided conclusively that I was indeed destined to be a non op MtF TS. I was happy, content, felt like I had made the greatest breakthrough and regardless of whether or not I transitioned I had my answer. Then I realized that that was only how I felt at that moment and that in all honesty I would want to transition later in life and decided that I must be more certain and have since lost all certainty. I'm back to now, I just have no idea.
I want to talk to my wife about this. She is open to talking about it. She and I have talked about it in the past. She has no issue with my wearing female clothes or presenting as female. She has done my makeup, we both had fun. But she has said in the past that transition would be well beyond her comfort zone and would likely result in separation. I'm concerned that even talking to her about the possibility of transition, even only to have her input, would result in a bad outcome. I would never pursue it if she was not 90% on board and I would never want her to think that I would be free to pursue my desires were she not around for fear that she might try to unburden me. It may be of use to know that she and I are both 29 years old.
In summary, I am closer to understanding myself. I at least have a better understanding of my sexuality if not of my gender identity. And again, I'm sorry to put this all here in what must be a wall of text, but I think I needed to talk to someone. Also I'm going to go ahead and apologize to anyone who responded a year ago if it appears that I am still making the same mistakes. Many of you gave me good advice and opinions that I probably did not internalize and thus I may be saying the exact same things as last time but with an air of newness to it that exists only in my mind.
And yes, I realize a therapist would be the best option, but to do that I would have to discuss this with my wife and expose myself to all the negative things that may follow. I just realized the entire reason for this post is to ask this question; how exactly do I start a conversation with my wife about this without her thinking I have already decided that I need to do this when I havn't?
So, amusingly, one year ago today I took the plunge and registered on this site to try to figure out what I was. I read the responses, replied a little, and promptly left. I have frequented the site on occasion, but mostly stayed to the CD section as I didn't feel I belonged here.
In case anyone is interested, this is the forum post from a year ago.
http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?190677-What-am-I&highlight=jenny85
I went through and reread my posts and realized I may have simplified a few of my views. More on that later.
Even a year later I am still only beginning to scratch the surface, I suspect, of who I am. To do a super short summary from the previous post, I was trying to figure out if I was TS or a guy who could not deal with being bisexual.
I believe now that I may be a bisexual TS. Though to be fair this belief is one that I have come to very recently and as such should be scrutinized.
In the posts I talked about concern that this interest mainly, I suspected, presented itself in the context of sexual fantasy. I said when I first learned about sex, by finding my father's porn stash, I related to the woman on screen. I forgot to mention this happened when I was 10 years old and at that time had very little idea how to view these thoughts. I was attracted to both the people on screen. That didn't seem wrong to me at the time, but as I grew up with my father in Texas I learned to never express interest in anything other than women.
I internalized some very bad things. Only now, after posting last year and considering things in several new lights, do I come to the semi-obvious conclusion that I am bisexual. This was hard for me to decide. I was looking at men through the same lens as I would look at women. For me, most women are at least somewhat attractive, or at the very least there is something to find attractive about almost any woman. This does not hold true to men. Most men to me are not attractive at all. This was hard for me to understand since, in the context of my sexual fantasies with me as a woman, almost any man would do. I realized this comes from porn. On screen I can believe that the man is anyone or anything I want. It is an image, or a video, that I can apply a background to. I can ignore things I don't like and imagine things I do. Especially if the pic or vid excludes most of the man and instead focuses on the lower half. When I removed any sort of assumption of myself as female, I found I am far pickier and selective in what I find attractive in a man. BUT, I do find some men attractive and would have sex with the right man.
One problem solved... probably the easy one.
To properly address the question of whether or not I'm TS I had to remove the sexual fantasy and desires from it and view myself in a nonsexual context. I believe it's hard for me to remove gender from sexuality because I grew up in an area that made absolutely no distinction for men. If you were a man, you had sex with women and that was IT. Though to be fair to my upbringing, if you were female you could do whatever you wanted. Having mostly removed the sexual aspect, the question remained, how do you decide if you are TS?
In rereading my post from a year ago to see how my feelings had changed, I realized I over simplified one thing that stuck out to me like a clear sign that I was not. I put forth that I did not have any issues with being a man and that I enjoyed the games of being a man and trying to be the alpha male in a group. That is not quite true. What I should have said is, I don't have a problem with people treating me like a man, because I look and act like one. The games of being a man, in my mind, are intellectual. I enjoyed being able to convince people that I was a manly man and an alpha male, though people who knew me knew this was not the case in most regards. I feel like I am succeeding in some great made up game whenever I convince people that I really am a man. I suppose I enjoyed the knowledge that if I had to, I could use what I looked like and how people treated me to be exactly what they expected. It's also worth noting that my competition for manliest man in the bunch usually is not very extreme. I would rarely ever compete when it was obvious that I would not win. Most activities that would be considered manly are of no interest to me and I despise the fact that most people think I must be into cars or sports. What I consider to be the man game and trying to be alpha male usually has more to do with confidence and knowledge and manipulation of social expectations than any actual physical displays or chest bumping. Also to be fair, this is mostly an in the past thing, as in, most of my fond memories of playing the game are from college and what little time I spent in the very manly occupation of the oil field.
In rereading the paragraph above I realize that may or may not actually change the meaning.
Basically, I still don't know if I'm trans but I suspect that most people who do not fall anywhere inside the classification at all do not spend nearly as much time thinking about gender identities as I have, and that tends to lend credence in my mind that I'm somewhere in the spectrum. For a period of about two weeks I had decided conclusively that I was indeed destined to be a non op MtF TS. I was happy, content, felt like I had made the greatest breakthrough and regardless of whether or not I transitioned I had my answer. Then I realized that that was only how I felt at that moment and that in all honesty I would want to transition later in life and decided that I must be more certain and have since lost all certainty. I'm back to now, I just have no idea.
I want to talk to my wife about this. She is open to talking about it. She and I have talked about it in the past. She has no issue with my wearing female clothes or presenting as female. She has done my makeup, we both had fun. But she has said in the past that transition would be well beyond her comfort zone and would likely result in separation. I'm concerned that even talking to her about the possibility of transition, even only to have her input, would result in a bad outcome. I would never pursue it if she was not 90% on board and I would never want her to think that I would be free to pursue my desires were she not around for fear that she might try to unburden me. It may be of use to know that she and I are both 29 years old.
In summary, I am closer to understanding myself. I at least have a better understanding of my sexuality if not of my gender identity. And again, I'm sorry to put this all here in what must be a wall of text, but I think I needed to talk to someone. Also I'm going to go ahead and apologize to anyone who responded a year ago if it appears that I am still making the same mistakes. Many of you gave me good advice and opinions that I probably did not internalize and thus I may be saying the exact same things as last time but with an air of newness to it that exists only in my mind.
And yes, I realize a therapist would be the best option, but to do that I would have to discuss this with my wife and expose myself to all the negative things that may follow. I just realized the entire reason for this post is to ask this question; how exactly do I start a conversation with my wife about this without her thinking I have already decided that I need to do this when I havn't?