Watchmaker

[Sabine Janus]

Trying to explain how crossdressing fits into an otherwise straight married middle class life professional life is a bit confusing. We don't understand it so how do we explain it to others?

I do think of the watch maker analogy- this is just one gear in a complex assembly. It makes us what we are. The good and hopefully not too much bad. Pll that one gear out and others may be glad it's gone, but the watch doesn't work anymore.

[MonicaPVD]

There's nothing to explain. Whatever works for you works for you. We spend an awful lot of bandwidth trying to rationalize things because, deep down inside, we haven't accepted ourselves. Bandwidth that we could put to better use living our lives to the fullest, pursuing happiness for ourselves and our loved ones.

[kimdl93]

There are probably as many explanations as there are cross dressers. For some people, its perhaps a feature and benefit. For others, a fault in the software.

[Krea]

Trying to explain "why" was difficult when i came-out to my wife, as i didn't really understand it myself.
Now i have given up trying to understand why and instead consider "where do i go from here?"

On a lighter note, a few chronologically-themed CDing thoughts:
CDing is certainly what makes me tick. :heehee:
Some people only CD if they have time on their hands.
Closeted members have to watch for their SO coming home.
(Sorry - it's the start of the weekend....)

[Karren H]

I have not worn a watch in years.... mine all broke and I never replaced them once I got a iPhone. So my analogy is that this thing I have is one of the many Apps that make up me... delete it and the other apps do not care. But I keep on working just with less capabilities ( and not as pretty)!! Almost like going back to a black boring case vs a pretty pink one! Lol.

[Cheryl T]

A woman asked me once Why?
I told her I had been contemplating that question for 50+ years and still didn't have an answer. I also said that if I had the definitive answer I could make millions selling books and doing speaking engagements ... and here I am in your living room doing neither.

[Stephanie47]

As other will surely respond; I do not know why I do what I do! When I first tried to explain myself to my wife I tried some of the traditional bull crap lines I have seen. I like pretty clothes. It relieves stress. Etc. None answer the why question. Why did I start in the first place? Why did I start and still do something that created so much angst and self loathing, etc. The simple answer is I don't know. Frankly, my life would have been better off if I was not a cross dresser.

[docrobbysherry]

Sabine, using your own analogy? Even a broken watch is rite twice a day!:thumbsup:

I think that explains perfectly how a closet dresser's life works!:devil:

[Judy-Somthing]

Why should girls be the only one have fun.

At a wedding one time I let out a big laugh. My wife said "what's so funny" I said "Oh nothing".

The reason why I laughed is, as I looked around the women were dressed up so beautiful with makeup, sexy hairstyles, and they all had different style beautiful dresses.

The man basically all looked the same like they all went to the same store that had only one style suit in slightly different colors.

[rachellegsep]

Quite ironic its the source of my pocket money :heehee:

[Ineke Vashon]

My pet peeve as well. I look at formal orchestras like Andre Rieu's, women in gorgeous shiny satin dresses, bare arms and bare shoulders. And the men? All exactly alike dressed like Penguins. No wonder we dress up.:cute:

Ineke :battingeyelashes:

[Lisa516]

Cross-dressing is grounded in a highly logical and universal desire: the wish to be, for a time, the gender one admires, is excited by ? and perhaps loves. Dressing like a woman is merely a dramatic, yet essentially reasonable, way of getting closer to the experiences of the sex one is profoundly curious about ? and yet has been (somewhat arbitrarily) barred from.

https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/the-psychology-of-cross-dressing/

[BTWimRobin]

Hi Sabine,

Welcome to our little community.

Questions like this make my head spin. I don't believe there is an answer. Just accept it and move on. It's soooo much easier and you'll have more time on your hands to do something girly.

[GretchenM]

Welcome to the forum.

There are some excellent theories of how and why all this happens and some are very credible with piles of evidence to support them. Unfortunately, none of them are easy to understand without a lot of background in multiple fields of biology. Humans exhibit the most complex gender oriented behaviors of any animal on the planet and it is one of the most important aspects in our lives, second only to food, air and water. It forms the core of our social lives and how we interact. Gender is not sex or sexual. It is not a thing. It is a process and a behavior pattern that allows us to communicate with each other in very personal ways as well as intellectually.

The mechanics of its workings are important, but what is really important is getting a handle on the feelings you have because those emotions are the substance of life and what others can understand more easily. You cannot sense the neural networks in your brain adapting and adjusting and developing responses in 1/100 of a second. You can only experience the results of those things. It is like gravity. You can't see it but everything is subject to its effects.

Communication about your feelings is still hard to do, but through the use of analogies the other person can relate to helps. For example, "When the girl in me appears it feels like I am standing on the top of a hill at sunrise surrounded by multicolored clouds, a gentle warm breeze crossing my skin, ruffling my skirt. Pure emotion. A new day, new hopes, new things to deal with. New things to learn. The Earth awakening." Sure beats talking about neuroscience or behavioral genetics. Those are also very important, even critical. But linking it to feelings is comprehensible to anyone because we all have feelings and many of us feel the same way about the same things that we experience. So connections between two minds becomes more feasible when complexities are stated in terms of feelings. And it works real well with gender matters because gender is, in fact, all about feelings and your sense of self, your sense of who you are as a creature with deep and complex emotions that often define your life and how you live it.