Why So Late?

[Peggy55]

I'm curious girls. What do you suppose is the difference between most of you who started dressing very young and someone like me who, at 51yrs old, just started a few short months ago? It's not like I repressed feelings for all those years. Actually it started when I found some stuff in the basement left behind from a previous girlfriend, tried it on and, as they say the rest is history!

Peggy

[stephanie100]

No differance you just took longer and remember the old saying "dont knock it till you tried it" and ill add you might like it.:heehee:

[tvbeckytv]

i dont think there is an answer, as the question presupposes that all who start young have a common motivation to crossdress.

[sandra-leigh]

I'm curious girls. What do you suppose is the difference between most of you who started dressing very young and someone like me who, at 51yrs old, just started a few short months ago?

There have been a couple of threads about when people started; it appears that there is a sizable contingent of late bloomers -- enough that I'm not at all sure that it is "most of you" that started dressing very young.

I haven't seen any good explanations for why there appears to a non-trivial number of latecomers; someone mentioned hormones and what is sometimes termed "male menopause" -- that is, male body chemistry changes in the 40's-50's.

I'm not sure where to class myself: I did do some "put on the nylons for excitement" as a teen, but not a great deal of it, really, and although for at least 5 years I did a fair bit of clothes shopping for my wife, it was really quite sudden at about age 43 that I suddenly thought "I could wear these myself! I could go out in public wearing these!".

[Sasha Anne Meadows]

Well I think we were all born this way. It just took longer for some of us to realize it.I was 50 when my wife started dressing me and now I know I alwalys wanted to do this.

[melissaabom]

I do not know !!

Melissa:2c:

[tekla west]

No idea, all my TG grrlfriends started at like five or six, five for me.

But it does seem to get stronger with age, particulary after 40. Perhaps the answer is related to that somehow.

[Kate Simmons]

It was calling you, Peggy. It can be quite seductive, after all.:happy:

[Marla S]

I'll try to knit a theory :heehee:

Predisposition - hormones (It's always the hormones) - social pressure - experience of life.

The hormones, the the social pressure, and the lack of experience of life control the predisposition. Everything is fine.

Now, experience of life increases, hence you care less about the social pressure, and the testosterone level decreases.

System lost balance, predisposition finally wins :eek: --> you are TG:D

Just a theory knitted with hot needles LOL

I don't know !!!

[Kate Simmons]

In other words Marla, we've grown and matured into who we really are without the "smokescreens".

[Amy Hepker]

I think you know more than us.

[Juanita O]

what difference does it make anyway. :2c:

[Marla S]

In other words Marla, we've grown and matured into who we really are without the "smokescreens".
Would make sense to me.
I don't think there is a single reason. Our world is full of smoke screens. Some are black, some are white, some are baby blue und some are pink.
Hard to find the ME within all this blinding foggyness.

[serinalynn]

I'm curious girls. What do you suppose is the difference between most of you who started dressing very young and someone like me who, at 51yrs old, just started a few short months ago? It's not like I repressed feelings for all those years. Actually it started when I found some stuff in the basement left behind from a previous girlfriend, tried it on and, as they say the rest is history!

Peggy



As you said "Tried it on, and the rest is history". I think its that simple. Hon. I did when I was 11 and I've been doing it off and on since I'm 57 now.

Serina :tongueout

[Alice D]

Personal opinion- it is something most of us enjoyed earlier on in our lives, but other things such as jobs , family, relationships, marriage etc. put this "on hold". When you are older, these things have less of an impact and you can be "yourself"- I'm trying to do that now. We'll see how it works.

Alice

[Kate Simmons]

It's a tough job but someone has to do it. Guess who got elected. My wife used to tell me this was a mid-life crises and that I was refusing to grow up by doing this. I felt exactly the opposite. I'd found the embryo of my true self and was determined to bring it to full term. For me it was a driving force like most of us but it was up to me to get a "handle " on it and be the one in control. Let on it's own, it tends to take on a life of it's own and can become all consuming. I know, I was there. I finally made it back down to Earth though and am who I am today. If we don't get control , it could potentially destroy us as it won't take "no" for an answer. Not trying to scare anyone but that was my experience. I'm just glad it turned out the way it did. As it is, I have a "truce" with myself. Balance is the key for me in that respect.:happy: EKR

[MJ]

hi all
i have tried to understand this my self as there are many new girls here that started late. and like you Peggy there seems to be no answer to this. you just like to dress there is nothing wrong with that. just have fun.

hugs Marissa

[Karren H]

Early or late.....in the end it's all the same...

Love Karren

[Peggy55]

The hormone thing. I was treated for low testoserone lately!

Peggy

[Lanore]

I'm glad I am where I am. One really nice trip.

Lanore

[Leslie Foxx]

Late bloomers are better than no bloomers.

[Bernadina]

Another late one here. Didn't get serious until I was in my 50's.

[Joy Carter]

I met another gurl last night and she was in her late forties. She just started too. But claims it wasn't there until recently.

[Kimkandy]

I'm late... thought about it when I was 30... 40.. now 50, it wasn't the right time before. Other things where going on. Now I've got whole outfits wigs, dresses, coat, boots and I've been out a couple of times.

Why didn't I do it twenty years ago, I was busy doing other things.

Kim

:dom: :Playnice: :wasntme:

[Peggy55]

I met another gurl last night and she was in her late forties. She just started too. But claims it wasn't there until recently.

Well there ya go! smile

[MarinaTwelve200]

I beleive CD satisfies a certain psychological "need" in one's life. And this "need" may de different and manifest itself at a different time in life.

Take for example the "Need" to "get away from ones self"--to temporally escape ones identity--to give one a "recharge" and relaxation and release. One may not FEEL that need in youth, but may , later on when one's life becomes more complicated.

Those, on the other hand, who feel that they may be internally the opposite sex, may feel a need to express this at a very early age, And most other CDs may be initially sexually motivated and crave some kind of opposite sex contact---driving them to take the plunge in puberty years.

Then there is the 'wildcard factor' where at any age, a person may CD for some social reason, like a play, skit or joke, and DISCOVER that CDing performs a good-feeling psychological function in them, that they must CD again and again to get whatever it gave them, till it becomes a habbit.

So there you have it. The age you begin is based upon what motivates your CD (why U do it) and when you decide that the drastic , taboo step of CDing will "satisfy the itch"--(usually at a young age or puberty)
OR you discover by accident (that can happen at any age)that you had an 'itch' you didnt know about, and a chance CDing brought that out.

Remember, CDing is a response to many different conditions and motivations, ranging from a kind of transsexualisim, to which CDing may be be an obvious idea at an early age. It could also be a response to the new pressures of puberty. Or a DISCOVERY that feels good. Discoveries may happen at any age--even older.

[susancheerleader]

I first started to wear my sisters clothes when I was between 12 and 14. It was such an rush and felt great. It was mostly my sisters leotards and somtimes a few other things. However, I was always caught and felt ashamed an embarased. Still, I kept doing it until eventauly I just stoped.
I never once thought about it again until a few years ago.
I was working at a restaurnt in a hot kitchen with long pant. Waitresses came in with thier skirts and it looked alot more comfortable then my long pants. One day as a joke I went to the manager and asked "If I wear a skirt. Can I wait on tables?" She replied "If you wear a skirt you can do anything you want."
It too a few days but I got a skirt off Ebay and went to work with it.
When all the waitresses and manager showed up, I changed into the skirt and went out in the dinningroom.
Needless to say everyones jaws dropped. I reminded the manger that she said I could do anything I want if I wore a skirt. She said "Yea but I didn't expect you to do it!" After about a half hour and some pictures, I changed back in my long pants and back in the kitchen.
That brought back that rush I felt so many years ago. And since then I bought a pile of clothes and dress all the time.
But I don't share that becasue I dress alone in my house. It's geting kinda boring now. :(
It would be great to just go OUT and enjoy it without fear or embarasment.

[Peggy55]

Very well put Marina! Especially the "wanting to get away from oneself". This would tie into what I read about people who begin CD'ing after a series of tramatic experinces.....Which coinsides with me.

Peggy.

[tekla west]

What difference does it make? In my case about 50 years. So, what, half a century or so. Might seem minor, but not to me. It was awesome to dress like a 15 year old when I was 16. I'm sure about that.

[Delila]

My thought on this is that 45 years ago it was so second nature to people to push down anything that was not "normal". How many men were married and have children realize in their 50s that they are gay. I think that due to the major acceptance as much as we might deny it your mind much more easily accepts the change and your built in wish to crossdress starts to manifest.

[Madeleine]

I'm late... thought about it when I was 30... 40.. now 50, it wasn't the right time before. Other things where going on. Now I've got whole outfits wigs, dresses, coat, boots and I've been out a couple of times.

Why didn't I do it twenty years ago, I was busy doing other things.

Kim

:dom: :Playnice: :wasntme:

Echoing the above - did not have the time or money 30 years ago, Now at 67 I feel more en femme than ever! And still have the mind of a 30 year old!!! However, the body sucks...

luv Madeleine...

[edina1]

I'm curious, and slightly disbelieving that late starters simply had not in the past the slightest interest or small thrill, even deep down and well hidden, about the idea of 'what must it be like to look like that' or 'how would it feel to put that on' ...... or maybe everyone thinks that sometime and only a select few act on the impulse?

[Kate Simmons]

I'm curious, and slightly disbelieving that late starters simply had not in the past the slightest interest or small thrill, even deep down and well hidden, about the idea of 'what must it be like to look like that' or 'how would it feel to put that on' ...... or maybe everyone thinks that sometime and only a select few act on the impulse?I tend to agree with you, Edina but sometimes the deepest feelings are the most hidden. There is only so long we can fool ourselves. Once we admit that, we get in touch with who we really are.:happy: EKR

[sandra-leigh]

I'm curious, and slightly disbelieving that late starters simply had not in the past the slightest interest or small thrill, even deep down and well hidden, about the idea of 'what must it be like to look like that' or 'how would it feel to put that on' ...... or maybe everyone thinks that sometime and only a select few act on the impulse?

Speaking for myself only: I was a teen during a feminist era, growing up in a feminist-y household. I don't mean that I was ever "put down" for being male: the issues discussed were sociological rather than personal. And it left me wondering, all these things that I never noticed in my own male life, so what was it like to be female, to have individuals and society react to me a female, and how would I feel different inside myself to be female? It was not a case of my feeling that I was "really" female, it was a consciousness that I was not female together with something that one might call a desire for empathy. So I did what little I could, which was to experiment a little with the most noticable trappings of females, such as nylons. I might have tried a dress a couple of times too; I do not have a sharp memory of such things.

The nylons became a minor and very occasional part of sexual experimentation -- at a time of life when anything to do with masturbation was furtive and exciting. It was just one of the things I tried; it was by no means the most important or the strongest urge. It was a crime of opportunity, indulged only when there happened to be some nylons thrown out. At that age, I was more concerned with "men's magazines".

As I recall, over the decades that followed, I did divert the occasional discarded pair of nylons; and I think a discarded pair of panties once or twice (I don't recall that I actually wore those.)

The experimentation itself was a very minor part of my life; the mental state of wondering what what women experience as an outcome of their femaleness was a more important part of my character. How could a concientious person not wonder, just as a conscientious white person might wonder what it is like to be black.


The question of what it is like to be female is still with me, and is one of my motivations for dressing, but when I suddenly started crossdressing about 26 months ago (mid fourties), the internal experience was very different than anything that had gone before. When I go out (as I did last night) in a dress and wig and makeup, I am not undertaking a sexual activity, and I am not mentally sitting back and watching people and examining my feelings to catalog the female experience: I am just enjoying the experience. Moreso, I'm not slinking back and hoping for paternalistic kindly acceptance of my "perverseness": most of the time I'm out with an attitude of "This is how I am, and if you don't like it, you can go somewhere else!"
Thus, I do not see my crossdressing as having much (if anything) to do with those very-infrequent nylon wearing incidents: those were rare and private sexual moments, very different from going out in public in female clothes (whether obviously so or not so obviously so.)

Now, it is plausible that if I were not the kind of person who wondered about the difference between the male and female experience, that I might have felt guilty or "sick" or like I was indulging a fetish or perversion; if various other parts of my character and experiences had been different, I might have felt that I was being "a sissy" or worried about not being (or appearing) "manly". That I got to where I am is due to far more than a few brief moments of sexual pleasure years apart.

I could not tell you why it feels right to have these B-to-C forms glued on, and this shirt that makes no attempt to hide my "breasts", and these panties, and these tights; but I think it would be a distinct mistake to trace it back exclusively to my teenaged pondering about how women deal with the world and how it deals with them.

[Deanna2]

If you don't have an appointment or a schedule then you can't be late. You just get around to things all in good time which is what happened to me.

I've been wearing panties and pantyhose for about twenty five years, although I've never really considered that as crossdressing. I started wearing leggings about ten years ago. It was only about 6-7 years ago that I took to wearing skirts. My wife has always known about the pantyhose and panties, but has known about the skirts only in the last year or so. I feel fantastic that I wear femme gear so much now and don't worry about not having started earlier.

[crossing-the-rain]

"Later is better ?" Or "Later is better !"
Rain

[Joy Carter]

The hormone thing. I was treated for low testosterone lately!

Peggy


Peggy two years ago my MD told me I had the same condition. He told me I'd feel better on the shots. But hey if God wanted me to have testosterone he'd never taken it away. Maybe this is what he had in mind for me all along. BTW I'm doing fine ! The wife said I'd should take the shots so I'd be more of a man, LOLOLOLOLOLOL.