What do you think about what I think?

[ophelia]

Look at male fashion from 16th - 19th centuries. Very pretty, nice fabrics, some high heels, hose, wigs makeup....????
Think of movies...Barry Lyndon, Amadeus, Le Roi Dances, the Libertine, Vautel, Tous les Matins du Monde, The Madness of King George, The Draftman's Contract, any of the movies about Henry XIII or Elizabeth I.....very "currently feminine" qualities to those looks.

Any others I've missed?

Look at any other species, mammal, bird...it's the male with the gorgeous plumage, wonderful coat, mane, flaming blue butt!

Things are 'a changin' but society is the thing that is out of sinc with reality as far as male fashion and obvious appearances.

So what I think is that any "real" man would either secretly, or openly delight in a "fashionably enhanced" transformation which our current society has labelled "feminine"

That puts us on the inside and all of those rawhide totin', beer swillin' rock-jocks on the outside.

[Kate Simmons]

The bottom line is that fashion and dress is what we make it. If I'm en femme, I can even make male work clothes look halfway decent.

[ophelia]

Fashion is an (albeit changing) societal norm and the masses seem to operate within it.

[Claire Cook]

Then again, women didn't seriously wear slacks until Dietrich, Harlow and Katherine Hepburn made them fashionable.

[ophelia]

But, even in those days, no one called Marlina, Jean and Katherine lesbos....

[kendra_gurl]

Look at any other species, mammal, bird...it's the male with the gorgeous plumage, wonderful coat, mane, flaming blue butt!

.

While this is true it is not by clothing or anything they could change. Think way before your 16th-19th centuries examples of the Caveman times. Males were larger than females but other than genitals and breast they looked very much the same

[Wildaboutheels]

I much prefer REALITY. Billboards, Magazine covers, [at most stores CHECKOUT] and most ANY stores allocation of space to M/F clothing items just to name a few.

FEMALE "attractiveness", is what the world, [Ok, at least here in the US] revolves around. PRODUCT SALES. Producing and advertising "stuff" that Humans of any sex will BUY. You can't seriously think no manufacturer would not PRODUCE stuff that they thought MALES would be all over to purchase? As far as I know Male money is just as good as Female money.

Most males won't spend the time, money or effort on their "appearance" [as females will] because they gain very little from it. This is easily confirmed at Dating site Forums. Of course one could claim people at Dating site Forums are all clueless losers... but the folks at THIS Forum are all brilliant... of course.

Women MUST be "attractive" to have greater choice in men. [IF men is their thing] Which is WHY they have so many more choices. They NEED them and more importantly WILL pay for them. This is simply Mother Nature at work and is not changing anytime soon.

REALITY ^^^

The Good News is that men CAN buy and wear clothes of their CHOICE from anywhere in the store.

Blaming Society for fear of making CHOICES for oneself is simply denial.

[Sarasometimes]

I would argue with you Wild.. but you already stated that you are brilliant so I won't. So you are saying women conform due to nature and that we actually have free reign to dress as we wish but we are in denial. OK. Hey if it is on the internet it must be true. Thanks.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Go back a bit to Renaissance times 1400 on. men wore dress's and skirts and lots of colour and heels hats and makeup and more, . now your ? does not say why they dressed that way and then you compare that to today. theres just a miner detail are you looking at fashion only or dressing as or like a woman,

no socity is not the problem . if you wear a Kilt what would any one say. nothing.....

we are Scots, our men wear Kilt's our women do and Scottish skirt's. wheres the issue .

its not about the dress or skirt. its what else is going on.

Our men 125 or so wear dress's our women about 130. do we reinact the Renaissance times is there an issue

The SCA,,i meet and greet people and tell them what we are doing again no issue's.

now why do you like wearing a dress or skirt.

Now are... you ....including cross dressing and wonting to be a look a like woman to pretend to be a woman. or is this straight up just to wear a dress or skirt ,

no wigs well they did , no makeup yes they did, now jewelry oh yes that too and powder's perfume's oh of cause to mask the oder. now did they dress to be like women and dress in a way like a womans or female form..

Well ...no..., so would you wear just a dress down the road or a skirt and top. no breast forms or inhancments and a beard like many men did in those day's, think we need to look back at the fashion of the people country and times to get a full view of the why.

Oh dear i forgot many women wore far better clothes way past 2000 years ago...... no women were not all dressed doudy ,

get away from western thinking . look at how beautyfull the Greeks are and the spanish, my people wore lovely clothes, what about our island people yes how lovely they look .

You say our women did not dress lovely they'd have ya gut's for garter's,

...noeleena...

[Jenniferathome]

Nope. I think you are trying to justify your cross dressing. Your examples from the past are examples of MALE fashion which are now quite out of fashion. There is no relationship from what was appropriate then to what is now considered feminine. It was MANLY back then.

[Beverley Sims]

Sounds like another "men should be able to wear dresses" thread to me.

[ophelia]

Not what I meant in many cases....
I think we crossdress as we do because it feels right and good to do so. I think that males over ancient history have been more naturally drawn to "display" and that male fashions of the past have been more in touch with that instinct than current male fashion would show. Therefore, we as crossdressers closer to our biological reality than most other men.

[suchacutie]

To my mind, wearing clothes that mix my genders is just not attractive (I know it is to some of us here, and that's great, but just not my thing).

I do wear woman's jeans because my wife thought male jeans looked terrible on me after I lost a bunch of weight. I do have my eyebrows arched, and my fingernails have strengthener on them so they don't delaminate. All these are plusses of being bigendered, but are not a femme fashion statement.

So, even if all these ideas of guys wearing what is now considered women's fashions were to become stylistically ok, I would still opt for what would tell the world that I am a male when that is what I'm presenting. When Tina is the presenter, then she goes all out to be feminine.

BTW, I don't wear drab men's clothes. I think I own one white shirt (except for tuxedo shirts) and my ties are not drab in any way (my daughter sees to that). I love looking good in both genders, but masculine is masculine and feminine is feminine and I work hard at making the difference very obvious!

[Laura912]

The original premise has a bit of a flaw. Those silks, heels, wigs were mostly, if not exclusively, worn by the nobility and very upper classes. Even the women were wearing very low cut dresses, corsets, and large hoop skirts. But the people in the trenches were wearing pants for the men and dresses for the women.