Is it really all that necessary to add the gender nomination?

[ophelia]

As I've said in other posts I think that as males it is in our ancient DNA to enjoy adornment. In many other species it is the male with the cool feathers. And I don't think that has changed today. What has changed is society's fashion rules. If you look back 300 years men wore wigs, powder, makeup, platform heels, stockings, perfume and lavish silk and satin costumes.
For whatever reason all of that great stuff has been highjacked into the box marked "girls".
You see, I do not want to be a girl, but I do want to look, smell and to feel "pretty" and "elegant".
My question, for those of like mind, is why we have to add the qualifier "feminine" to how we feel while dressed?

[Judith96a]

I can't speak for anyone else, but the lavish male clothes of 300 years ago were (in the context of the time) still very definitely masculine. Had I been born then I suspect that I would still have had a hankering for fancy frocks etc.
Anyone got a time machine?

[kimdl93]

I thought y ou were describing the 80s!

[ophelia]

I can't speak for anyone else, but the lavish male clothes of 300 years ago were (in the context of the time) still very definitely masculine. Had I been born then I suspect that I would still have had a hankering for fancy frocks etc.
Anyone got a time machine?

Relative to the boring male clothes of today is what I meant.

[Jenniferathome]

Judith has it right. that WAS fashion and masculine for the time. There was still feminine at that time and it was different than what the men wore. You re using the context of today on fashion a million years ago. Just doesn't work.

[franlee]

Ophelia,

You are right and even ear rings, silk stockings and more were for men and the women found them to be shall we say "nice." So they took them! LOL But really I know all the terms and what society says about gender assigned labels for clothes but the clothes I wear are mine and I am a male so the debate is moot. Now when I wear my wife's or other woman's clothes then I am definitely crossdressed. But who cares? A rose by any other name.................

[Megan Thomas]

I'm sure if you go back even further you'll find men "hijacking" womens "fashion" long before you can level the same of women 300 years ago. It should also be kept in mind that much of it was through necessity, such as wigs to cover up lice infested hair and perfume to overpower the stench that otherwise pervaded the air in those times. Public sanitation just didn't exist and both genders adopted whatever was to hand instead, such as aforesaid wigs and perfumes, because they didn't have the means to keep themselves clean for any length of time. Clothing finery was often a display of wealth or status rather than anything else. Again, go back 300 years and look at the poorer classes and you didn't see them wearing such garments. When machinery was used to start mass production of clothing the uptake became more common because costs fell and the poorer masses could afford them.

[ReineD]

As I've said in other posts I think that as males it is in our ancient DNA to enjoy adornment.

I think it is within both male and female DNA to attract mates. For most of us this is the opposite sex, but there is a small percentage of folks who are same-sex, no-sex, or self/object-attracted.

So that means (for opposite-sex attraction) that males of a species do what it takes to attract the female of the species and vice-versa. If your prime attraction is to the opposite sex, then you will want to present yourself in a way that they find attractive? The specifics of fashion change as we navigate through history and cultures. In the 17th century it might have meant wearing a powder wig and french lace cuffs (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Colley_Cibber_as_Lord_Foppington_in_The_Relapse_by _John_Vanbrugh_engraving.jpg). In some tribes in Africa it might have meant painting your body and wearing nose rings (http://www.leni-riefenstahl.de/images/dienuba/nuba_8g.jpg). In the Edo period it might have meant tying your hair back and wearing a kimono (http://factsanddetails.com/media/2/20090730-samurai%20warrior.jpg). But, no matter the era, my guess is that women's clothing was at least one notch more elaborate.

Attracting mates is not necessarily the reason that CDers dress, of course, but you brought up the DNA and adornment. :)

[Beverley Sims]

I can dress as smartly as the next Italian male in designer clothing, but that is not a feminine form of dress.

[ophelia]

Still no answer to the actual question.

[justmetoo]

I like both historical male fashions as well as female ones, like Victorian era, the 1700s, etc. For most of the last 100 years though men's fashions have been pretty dull for the most part, especially the more "establishment" you go. Look at just about any picture of male politicians (and not only in the western world) vs. female politicians today. Where are you going to find much color (maybe a little in men's ties, but otherwise the colors will mostly be in women's clothing) or variety? At least in earlier times men's fashions had more color and variety, both civilian and military. These days, not so much, in civilian or military. :P

To answer your question, though, I don't think you have to add the qualifier "feminine" if that's not what you're going for. I support freedom of expression. :)

[Kate Simmons]

When it comes to dressing as a man or woman, we are only limited by our own imaginations really.:)

[Carolana]

I have had these thoughts in the past like "what if it was normal for men to wear skirts?" In thinking this through, I can say for certain that though at first it sounds like a nice idea, if it really were the case, then wearing a skirt would be redundant as it would not have the same effect on my psyche as it does now. Think about this,(Ophelia). We may well be men who dress like women, but that is not what we think of ourselves while en femme. We are men in simple terms, who get enjoyment from 'pretending' to be women. Face it, if whatever adornment you are talking about was not associated with the other gender, then it would not have the same appeal. You say you like to look, smell, and feel "pretty" and "elegant", and do not really want to be a girl. What you are talking about is that you are not TG. You do not want a sex change. Well, you have just defined a transvestite, a cross dresser. The only way that you even think in terms of pretty or elegant is because those things are gender specific. We are hard wired to relate to ourselves in terms of our genitals. If you really insist that this is not a gender issue for you, then I assume you never wear a bra or a bra and padding. This is where the rubber meets the road. If a man is pretending to have breasts, he is associating himself with the female gender. Whether one is in one category or another, TG, CD, TV, these things are directly connected to gender association. The gender nomination as you call it, is the whole point. That is my humble opinion.

[Alice-V]

That shed a lotta light on some questions/thoughts of mine. Thanks for sharing your opinion, Carolana.
I have to agree that if skirts and all else were normal for males to wear it wouldn't have the same appeal for us CDers, though it would make it easier to go out.

[devida]

You see, I do not want to be a girl, but I do want to look, smell and to feel "pretty" and "elegant".
My question, for those of like mind, is why we have to add the qualifier "feminine" to how we feel while dressed?

That's pretty much the way I feel. I'm not bigendered. I don't have discrete male and female identities. I'm just me. But perhaps unlike you I don't want to identify with either being male or female though I certainly prefer the way that most people who identify as women present themselves.

Gender is quite complicated. It's a bunch of variable rules that are usually accepted as absolute, unchanging and based on something real (what's between your legs). Of course looking at the history of fashion shows how silly the idea is that the rules of dressing by gender are absolute.
I think gender is entirely performative, that is a set of identities that like all identities are quite variable and a matter of personal choice. People put them on like a pair of panties or boxer shorts. They change them all the time.

So why do we use the terms masculine and feminine if they are actually imprecise, a matter of choice, and don't really exist outside of our own minds? I think the main reason is that most human language is based on binary discriminations. We are always separating this from that, you from me, us from them, male from female. Maybe it's our need to very quickly decide if something or someone is a threat, ally, or neutral.

I sometimes use the word femme to describe myself, which is really a diminutive of feminine. I don't know if people think I'm feminine. I doubt they think I'm masculine. Ultimately I don't care.

There's really a lot of play in the presentation of gender. I have fun with it and so, I think, do most of the people who frequent this discussion group. I enjoy playing with male and female elements of dress and identity. But If I look in the mirror, dressed or naked I don't really see anyone who is either masculine or feminine. I just see me.


We are hard wired to relate to ourselves in terms of our genitals.

I'm sorry Carolana, this is simply not true. We are strongly socialized to think of ourselves in terms of our genitals but there is absolutely nothing that requires that people who identify as men have penises and people who identify as women have vaginas. Gender is a matter of identity and identities are a matter of choice, not biology.

Even in terms of sex the variability of expression of primary and secondary sex characteristics in human beings and in nature is so vast that most biologists now understand the terms male and female to be matters of conceptual classification, not something inherent in natural phenomena.

It's just our language that makes us think there are real things like male and female, masculine and feminine. Language is a construction used, mostly, by human beings to communicate with each other. It has an imprecise reference to reality. In the case of sex, gender, and sexuality this imprecision is dramatic.

[Lynn Marie]

For me, the clothing has become only part of the transformation to "feminine". The makeup, hair, heels, and jewelry all contribute to the illusion with the hair as the "crowning glory". And then there's the walk and the more delicate touches of the feminine mystique that appear especially when out and being seen.

[Sara Jessica]

I thought y ou were describing the 80s!

Totally!!!

[Judith96a]

Relative to the boring male clothes of today is what I meant.

Ophelia,
Yes, I understood that! Perhaps I didn't express myself very well.
As I understand it your question is something like, do we have to label ourselves (and /or our 'fashion') as 'feminine' in order to be able to wear makeup, nice fabrics etc?
To which my response is something like, even if the wheel were to turn full circle within my lifetime and men's fashions were to become as flamboyant as they were 300yrs ago (with women's fashions keeping pace) I'm pretty certain that, from time to time, I'd still want to wear skirts and dresses and want to look female. Yes, I'd enjoy being able to glam up more in boy mode but...

And I still want that time machine! Have you seen women's fashions from the 18th century? I'd love some of that!

Nice one Sara!

[Carolana]

Devida. We are free to agree to disagree. Last time I checked, men cannot give birth and never will. You probably don't agree much with the Mars and Venus stuff, either. That's ok with me. We can only form an opinion on these things. There are very few asexual species on the planet that reproduce asexually. We aren't one of them This is a chicken vs. egg subject. Did culture first dictate gender identity, or did gender identity dictate culture? I can say that when people say the were born this way (gay, tg, tv), there is no way to prove it. But even then, one can be born blind or deaf. All this means is that they have ears or eyes that do not function as nature intended. There's no condemnation in either case.
But I stand by what I said. The sexual experience that leads to reproduction, by its very physiology (genitals, vaginas, breasts), defines differing roles to some degree and certainly defines gender by scientific definition (biology is a science). The majority of men in this forum are in a role playing situation with cross dressing and are heterosexual as well as having no desire to be in permanent female role. It is the identifying with the other gender that gives us pleasure. We can attribute that to culture all we want, but the reality of it does not change. Our physiology that we were born with is different than that which we are pretending to have. Cheers.

[Carolana]

If I may be so bold as to add another comment. The very nature of many threads in this site reveal that most if not all people struggle or have struggled with the phenomena of taking pleasure in identifying with the opposite sex. This struggle goes with gays and TG's as well. The first reason of course is that it is different from what society calls normal. I personally have quit the habit once and for all...over, and over, and over throughout my lifetime. I finally came to the conclusion that a part of me doesn't want to quit because it enjoys this too much. This bears a remarkable resemblance to what defines an addiction. Well, whatever. The present day culture is being bombarded with demands to accept gays, and I suspect TG's and CD's are not far behind. Unfortunately a driving force behind this is a resentment for having to go through all the pain of self acceptance and finally coming out of the closet, only to have to deal with ridicule and rejection. So now we have two conflicting excuses emerging (for lack of better term), for our lifestyle. One group insists having been born that way, and another that it is a matter of choice. Personally I think it is more complicated than either of those two. To me, it is not so much a choice as in something we 'do', but rather something that 'happens' to us. Perhaps this could have been another thread topic.