CD's in my textbook!

[Anna Lorree]

I am taking a Psychology course in college. We are in a chapter where the topic is abnormal behavior. While reading tonight, I had to chuckle.

"What constitutes normality varies somewhat from one culture to another, but all cultures have such norms. When people violate these standards and expectations, they may be labeled mentally ill. For example, transvestic fetishism is a sexual disorder in which a man achieves sexual arousal by dressing in women's clothing. This behavior is regarded as disordered because a man who wears a dress, brassiere, and nylons is deviating from our culture's norms. This example demonstrates the arbitrary nature of cultural standards regarding normality, as the same overt behavior (cross-sex dressing) is acceptable for women but deviant for men."

Psychology Themes & Variations 8E, Briefer Version
Wayne Weiten

Anna

[Vanessa Storrs]

Does that mean that I'm a pervert or only mentally ill?

[sterling12]

Doctor says I have a deviated septum....do I qualify foir The Raffle, and what's The Prize?

Peace and Love, joanie

[lingerieLiz]

If you want to have fun ask the teacher if he believes that to be true. What scientific proof is there that it is abnormal. So anything that is different from what others do is adnormal? You get the gist.

By the way I was asked not to take any more psychology classes when I went to school. Never could figure out why.

[ReineD]

Does that mean that I'm a pervert or only mentally ill?

If you want to have fun ask the teacher if he believes that to be true. What scientific proof is there that it is abnormal.

No, you've got it all wrong!

The author is saying that it's silly to apply different rules to men who wear dresses than we do to women who wear pants. He maintains this is an example of autocratic rule that is enforced just because the behavior is different than the norm.

In other words, he's saying that "normal" people shouldn't freak out when others are different ... or when they read things in the DSM.

But, I strongly disagree with him on the matter of women "crossdressing" when they wear pants. And I don't care if he's a PhD who wrote a college textbook. He's wrong! lol

[girltoy]

But, I strongly disagree with him on the matter of women "crossdressing" when they wear pants. And I don't care if he's a PhD who wrote a college textbook. He's wrong! lol

I concur. You cannot compare someone dressing for the purpose of sexual arousal to someone dressing to be comfortable going to work or doing laundry. Poorly written.

[noeleena]

Hi,

If you listen to these people .....who..... think they are right then i totaly disagree with them, period .

Why its western thinking. thats why. go back to 1400 to 1700 then will he or they agree with me that our dress was both male & female = dress'ers get it,

Renaissance im a member 100 of our men wear dress's yes & they are real mens men in dress tights & all they are not trying to be women or would even think it . they are just dressed in what was worn then. & they are normal men.

Oh by the way where does he or them get thier idears from.???

gee im glad im a woman,......

...noeleena...

[Rogina B]

Normal is a setting on a washing machine only...I dislike that adjective when applied to human behavior. The author could have slanted the reasoning for the dressing more to "gender identity" rather than sexual arousal..IMO..

[Kate Simmons]

The bottom line is that when men "crossdress" it's considered by society to be abnormal. When women "crossdress" it considered by society to be stylish. But whoever said that any of us really give a hoot about what "society" thinks? They don't pay my salary and certainly don't do my laundry.

[kimdl93]

This is a single paragraph excerpted from a larger work...and I'm sure the author has a good deal more to say on the subject. He's simply commenting in this paragraph on the arbitrary nature of cultural norms.

[Foxglove]

No, you've got it all wrong!

The author is saying that it's silly to apply different rules to men who wear dresses than we do to women who wear pants. He maintains this is an example of autocratic rule that is enforced just because the behavior is different than the norm.

I agree.

But, I strongly disagree with him on the matter of women "crossdressing" when they wear pants. And I don't care if he's a PhD who wrote a college textbook. He's wrong! lol

Sorry, Reine, I can't agree with this. I've recently come to the conclusion that all you GG's who wear pants are in denial. I'm not judging you. I was in denial myself for many, many years and only recently started down the road to self-acceptance. Believe me, you have all my sympathy and support. Accept your TG nature. If I can do it, anybody can.

Good luck, Annabelle

[Anna Lorree]

No, you've got it all wrong!

The author is saying that it's silly to apply different rules to men who wear dresses than we do to women who wear pants. He maintains this is an example of autocratic rule that is enforced just because the behavior is different than the norm.

In other words, he's saying that "normal" people shouldn't freak out when others are different ... or when they read things in the DSM.

But, I strongly disagree with him on the matter of women "crossdressing" when they wear pants. And I don't care if he's a PhD who wrote a college textbook. He's wrong! lol

My original post was meant along the line of this being a silly standard. You comment about the "women in pants" issue. I agree with you that now women in pants is "normal", however there was a time when it was not. When you wear pants it is now considered normal, but there was a time when women pushed the definition of normal from dresses only to then include pants. The women who participated in that societal change were crossdressing. Their crossdressing was likely (or at least often) manifested out of comfort or practicality instead of a fetish, but it was still abnormal behavior for the time that involved wearing the clothes of the other sex. They had their reason for their "abnormal" behavior, just as current era mtf's have their own reasons for their "abnormal" behavior. The question is does practicality trump sexual gratification as a motivation for human behavior? I think they are both valid, and no this isn't a fetish for me. I don't dress for sexual gratification, I dress for a gratification of personality and of identity. As such, I'm not just making that statement to validate my own circumstance.

Anna

[Anna Lorree]

If you want to have fun ask the teacher if he believes that to be true. What scientific proof is there that it is abnormal. So anything that is different from what others do is adnormal? You get the gist.

By the way I was asked not to take any more psychology classes when I went to school. Never could figure out why.

Heck, I think it is abnormal! Normal is basically a statistical average of the sample being examined. In this case, you have to define the biological "normal", as well as the societal "normal". However you slice it, I am abnormal. That said, biologically abnormal isn't always bad. And socially abnormal is only a problem of convenience for society. In other words, how well does society "deal with" the abnormal behavior? With regard to crossdressing, it would seem that society deals with it fairly poorly when you look at the generally negative social reaction as compared to the potential damage that this "abnormality" can cause.

Anna

[Michaelasfun]

In the threads I've been participating in about how best to dress to go out and about, my .02 has been to dress more casually than to the nines, at least to start with, so you are less of a standout. One reason I'm motivated to give that view is that when I go out, you see lots of GGs wearing some of their boyfriend's stuff, most of which is casual, and nobody seems to think twice. So I would agree with the last sentence in your quote.

As far as crossdressing being a result of being mentally ill - I consider "mentally ill" behavior to be more in the realm of serial killers, not wearing a particular piece of clothing. Throw cultural norms out the window as far as I'm concerned, I judge people by their behavior and how they treat others, not the color of their socks.

Like the Churchill quote! I'm going to start using that where appropo

[kimdl93]

Women who wore pants to make a statement - that they were independent and practical - were certainly challenging social norms of the time. A transgendered person who goes out dressed en femme, is also making a statement, particularly if we do so with the full knowledge that we will often be "read". I don' t think that implies a value judgement that its better to dress as a means of expressing your gender identity than it is to dress for sexual gratification. But, I'd also submit that a person dressing for sexual gratification probably won't do so in public, and therefore is only challenging a cultural norm in in privacy. In that case, its sort of like a tree falling in the forest situation.

[Stephanie47]

I checked Amazon and the cited work is in its Eighth Edition. I wonder of the author has seen some enlightenment over the years. This is the same information handed out in the 1960's. I will agree society sets 'norms' in the sense of acceptable and expected behavior. So, it is outside the norm that a male wear wear the clothing of a female. That may be a deviant behavior in a simple expense, but, it is not mental illness. In days of old society use to lock up persons who did not conform.

As to cross dressing for sexual gratification. That is so far off base, it should be stricken from the text. Yes, there are men who may be sexually motivated to dress as women, especially in their youth. However, the vast majority of more mature cross dressers do not dress for any sexual motivation. There is nothing sexual about pushing the vacuum, doing the wash and ironing, washing dishes, baking and cooking in a dress and heels.

Rubbish! Unfortunately the vast majority of people in the lecture class will accept the statements as gospel truth.

[Anna Lorree]

I checked Amazon and the cited work is in its Eighth Edition. I wonder of the author has seen some enlightenment over the years. This is the same information handed out in the 1960's. I will agree society sets 'norms' in the sense of acceptable and expected behavior. So, it is outside the norm that a male wear wear the clothing of a female. That may be a deviant behavior in a simple expense, but, it is not mental illness. In days of old society use to lock up persons who did not conform.

As to cross dressing for sexual gratification. That is so far off base, it should be stricken from the text. Yes, there are men who may be sexually motivated to dress as women, especially in their youth. However, the vast majority of more mature cross dressers do not dress for any sexual motivation. There is nothing sexual about pushing the vacuum, doing the wash and ironing, washing dishes, baking and cooking in a dress and heels.

Rubbish! Unfortunately the vast majority of people in the lecture class will accept the statements as gospel truth.

If you re-read it, it says that fetishistic crossdressing is a disorder because it violates an arbitrary cultural norm. It did not label fetishistic crossdressing as a mental illness. Further, it makes NO comment whatsoever on non-fetishistic crossdressing. I know we are all a bit sensitive because this hits close to home, but please don't read more into the quote than what it actually says.

Anna

[Miriam-J]

If you re-read it, it says that fetishistic crossdressing is a disorder because it violates an arbitrary cultural norm. It did not label fetishistic crossdressing as a mental illness. Further, it makes NO comment whatsoever on non-fetishistic crossdressing. I know we are all a bit sensitive because this hits close to home, but please don't read more into the quote than what it actually says.

Well said, Anna. But it's unfortunate that the author chose an incomplete example. It would have been more enlightening to point out that fetishistic crossdressing is classified as a mental illness (until DSM V anyway), but non-fetishistic crossdressing is just a variation that isn't fully accepted in society.

Miriam

[LeannL]

Does that mean that I'm a pervert or only mentally ill?

For the MTF, take your pick but it is only when they are dressed en homme

[StevieTV]

Doctor says I have a deviated septum....do I qualify foir The Raffle, and what's The Prize?

Peace and Love, joanie

I believe a deviated septum wins you a nose job and secret facelift.....oh wait that was jennifer aniston

[Vickie_CDTV]

Leaving out the fetishism part would prove his point much better, not there is anything wrong with that of course but you need to compare apples to apples. Women don't dress in male clothes for arousal (or at least it is extremely rare), so it would be best to omit mentioning a sexual component for male dressing.

At least he got his terminology correct I suppose...

[Veronica27]

Words such as deviant and abnormal have been given a bad rap over the years. They simply refer to those things that are outside of the statistical “norm” for any given subject. We, as a culture, are guilty of reading unsavoury implications into these terms that transform otherwise useful words into derogatory comments. It is another example of the insidious nature of political correctness. As cross dressers, we are definitely abnormal, because as such a small percentage of the overall population, we deviate from the norm.

I am proud to declare that I am abnormal, because it means I do not follow the rigid dictates of society, but think for myself and experience whatever I choose of all that life has to offer.

Veronica

[Shananigans]

Whaaaaaaaaat cultural norms can be arbitrary?? Preposterous.

I was under the pretext that almost everything is arbitrary until we arbitrarily assign it some arbitrary meaning.

I wonder why the author didn't say that clothing assignments designated by gender are also ONLY by some arbitrary system. (I feel the author scratched around on the surface, but didn't mention that clothing in and of itself is completely random and arbitrary). It is by chance that women are told to where dresses, makeup, etc. and men are told to be in pants, suits, etc. There is no rhyme nor reason why we designated the clothes that we have with any sort of gender value. We could have developed in a society that had the complete opposite preferences. Many animals in the wild have ornate looking males because the male animals have to work for the female animal's attention (sexual selection)...not the other way around. So, we could have easily developed into a society where men do wear makeup, jewelry, etc. I don't rule it out for the future.

Or, we could all fall into the stereotypical communist picture where we all wear grey uniforms/look alike.

Most values in our society are assigned without much real reason. You have just thought outside of the box. Many people step back and really look at/wonder why we do the things that we do, and it can be astounding. But, there will always be a cultural norm...it's how we operate within communities. So, bucking against the norm can be like paddling upstream...it will make people uncomfortable and it's going to be hard for you. Through whatever pathway that this community evolved, people decided that they felt most comfortable assigning the silly little systems that they felt were of value...and, when you go against the systems that make people comfortable, you are an outsider until they decide they are comfortable with it. But, you're in luck...many people are outsiders. However, a lot of people are REALLY good at hiding and people are also generally pretty good at conforming. Conforming, of course, isn't actually a bad thing...we would all be isolationists if we did not conform in some respects.

[Kate Simmons]

Hmm, that having been said, I isolate very well Shan.

[Shananigans]

Hmm, that having been said, I isolate very well Shan.

lol! Me too...and, I don't feel too bad about it either!

We probably all feel a little isolated sometimes...or, like we are different from everyone else. In a lot of ways, we all ARE different from everyone else...that's kind of why we are individuals and (usually) interesting.

But, I am kind of a lone wolf sometimes...and, I like it.