Wen4cd, I suppose crossdressing and fetishes are apples and oranges for some, maybe most, but for some of us they are closely connected and for myself, they cannot be separated. I am always, even when dressed OTT, a guy. I just want to create something that excites the guy looking into the mirror.
When I was a young boy getting my teeth cleaned by a beautiful dental assistant, for the duration of the cleaning my eyes were fixed on her perfect deep red lips. Even long before any awareness of sexual excitement, I may have experienced a feel-good twitch. Maybe it was this event, maybe not, that started my fetish for deep red lipstick. For whatever reasons unknown to me, I have two major fetishes, deep red lipstick and very high heels, plus a few minor ones, all things women wear. I'm not trying to reconcile what I wear with an internal feminine identity, but rather I crossdress to maximize the excitement that those fetishes invoke in the guy that I am.
For me, the desire to crossdress began in early childhood, but lacking privacy and money and nerve, I just dabbled until I was able to put it all together in my early twenties. Or so I thought I was head-to-toe complete. Over the years since it has been more is better, and I love to make up and dress as over-the-top as I can.