When you first began dressing, were you also confused with your sexuality?

[Ressie]

Interesting story Tammy. I guess you found that we are all individuals and most the answers here have nothing to do with your ex boyfriend. Apparently he had to lie because he knew you wouldn't be able to accept his sexual kinks. It's too bad everyone can't be honest about their sexual fantasies and proclivties from the start. I think he was hiding the truth because he didn't want to blow it with you. Take it as a compliment as you realize that he's not the one for you.

I loved him unconditionally

So much for unconditional love. You found several conditions that put a stop to that. It's OK you're only human.

[sometimes_miss]

Tammy, sounds like you've done all anyone could expect of you. Time to cut him loose. You can give him the 'we can still be friends' routine, but it looks like he loves himself way more than he loves you. Sorry you went through all this. I feel bad for him, too, but he clearly isn't willing to do what is necessary to keep you.

[Jenniferathome]

..... Take it as a compliment as you realize that he's not the one for you.



So much for unconditional love. You found several conditions that put a stop to that. It's OK you're only human.

I'm stunned by both these comments. First, how is lying a compliment? Lying, in the face of opportunity to come clean, shows nothing but contempt for someone. Second, Tammy showed unconditional love for the person she thought she knew. Your "clever" twist of her words are thoughtless.

[rachelatshop]

Hi Tammy,.
I first started CDing when I was in late 20 early 30s. It was to relieve frustration due to unrewarding relationships. It helped increase my self gratisfacation, and slowly it grew from single pieces of female clothing to full outfits. I stopped for 15 years after meeting and marrying my loving wife. I have recently started underdressing. I can not pass as I have a full beard, and a very hairy upper body that my loves. I would not in any way compromise my wife's image of me. I only CD for the rush it gives me, and the amazing feeling I get from dressing.
BEST OF LUCK
Rach

[heatherdress]

Interesting story Tammy. I guess you found that we are all individuals and most the answers here have nothing to do with your ex boyfriend. Apparently he had to lie because he knew you wouldn't be able to accept his sexual kinks. It's too bad everyone can't be honest about their sexual fantasies and proclivties from the start. I think he was hiding the truth because he didn't want to blow it with you. Take it as a compliment as you realize that he's not the one for you.

So much for unconditional love. You found several conditions that put a stop to that. It's OK you're only human.

Ressie - You are blaming her! How can you do that?

She loved him. Unfortunately she discovered that he had secret behaviors that most women do not want to be part of. Most women don't want to discover their partners crossdressing, but she discovered a lot more. And he lied when confronted. How can you accuse her as being the reason that he "had to lie"?

She came here for help and understanding. And you question her love and blame her, because she does not want to be part of an unhealthy relationship? And then you insult her. Your remarks seem to be judgmental and nasty.

[Ressie]

Not blaming Tammy. But looking back I can see that I was a bit harsh and I apolgize for that. The boyfriend was probably bi-curious years ago and… it certainly not an easy topic to bring up. Many men have been hiding CDing and/or bisexuality from their wives for years or even decades. It's probably a good thing that Tammy found out at this stage of the relationship, but I didn't see how long they've been together. At age 24 it could be since high school or it could be for less than a year.

[marilyn m]

hi tammy,
when i first began dressing i was very shy of women, and used crossdressing as sexual relief
seeing my reflection, but was totally hetrosexual, but as i have got older i have found cd/ts porn stimulating
i have had fantacies about going with a cd/ ts and dressed, but to actually physically do it i would probably freek out.

[lpjamey]

I have been confused for 45 years now and I cant see any help soon. I love being a man but women have tits, curves and a pussy come on now my dick is nothing. I started dressing because I wanted that feeling of sexual power. I love the weight of large breast forms on my chest, the tightness of strappy heals on my feet and the form fitting blouse holding me together

[Barbara147]

Having been raised by a hard shell Baptist mother, I was always guilty. As far as my sexuality, I am basically hetero with a bi-curious leaning. I think my need for dressing stems from my father rejecting me when I was very young while being very loving to my mother and sisters. I always imagine a man loving me when dressed.

[michellechong]

After almost 40 years, I am still confused with my sexuality. I guess I belong to somewhere in-between a crossdresser and transexual. When I put on my first pair of panties, I got so sexually aroused that I ejaculated almost immediately but this sort of excitement gradually faded away along with time. Though I lost my anal virginity to a guy in my neighbourhood when I was 17 and had sex with many men before, I am pretty sure that I am not a gay, cause all my past sexual encounters with men, I was in my female persona and have walk away in many occasions when I realised that I was with a wrong party i.e. a gay

[Tina_gm]

1st off, I am sorry Tammy for what you are going through. I would say pack and go even if the porn was only regular straight porn. That much involvement is never any good for a serious relationship.

What I will add won't be of much help to you Tammy at this point. But I was thinking about my reply so I will go ahead with it. I was not one of the really young ones when it came to my 1st CDing experiences. I never even had a desire to until high school. Middle school, or junior high I discovered girls. About the average time most guys do. While even before I had my 1st experience of even wanting to dress, I was a bit on the feminine side as a young boy, not that I really even knew it. Looking back now I can see that I was.

When I 1st began having the feelings of wanting to dress (my ist actual dressing took place several years later) I thought maybe I had the inclination to be gay??? One of the reasons I was so hesitant about dressing was that I was afraid I was going to wake up the gay gene. I knew I only liked females sexually, but hey back in the early 80's there wasn't a whole lot of info out there. Any portrayal of a CDer back then had them being highly oversexual and always gay. What few who were out at the time were almost always drag queens, who are typically gay.

My thoughts were in part, if I fight this off, I will not wake up the gay thing. I liked girls, was attracted to them, enjoyed being intimate with them and did not want that to change. Well today, a little over 30 years later, I am still only attracted to women.

[Rhian]

I started cross dressing before I ever realised there was an alternative to liking women so never had chance to question my sexuality. I've never been interested in sex with males. There was points where my dressing became more frequent and I feared becoming gay but I didn't think I actually was. The only area that ever made me question my sexuality was when I first started masturbating to ******* porn and I would always feel very low after I orgasmed. However I soon realised that I was projecting myself onto the trans woman who was having sex with a beautiful woman, rather than projecting myself onto someone projecting myself onto the person receiving a penis.I'm 24 and although it has been years since I have been interested in a woman I know I am not gay.

[Sharon B.]

I was never confuse about my sexuality, it just felt more comfortable and it seem right. Even now I am more comfortable wearing women's attire, just wish I lived in or closer to the city and at times wish I didn't have my animals and hobby farm. If I still lived in the subdivision I might be driving a small suv and would be more willing to go out more as a woman.

[Mayo]

Tammy ~ I hope you will let us know how things are going with you.

[Camisoul]

Of course I was confused growing up, and probably more so in my twenties! Now, I am pretty content being a bisexual, very kinky man. I think coming of age in the later Nineties certainly made attempting to understand and accept myself more "ok."

Something I was never ok or comfortable with was lying to/hiding from a vanilla partner. So I exclusively date kinksters, or veerrrrrry "openminded" types.

For me, no matter how attracted I may be to a person, I have to lay out exactly who I am, what I do, and who I do/done it with behind closed doors to them. Better sooner than later, as OP has unfortunately discovered.

[Milly1410]

Besides my attempt as a baby, i enjoyed CD being 19 yo. I was confused too, but learned i still love my gf anyway, so I think i'm still straight anyway. I learned there are two souls living inside of me, and I let them coexhist in this way.

[flatlander_48]

T4:

I finally began to admit to myself that I was not straight in the early 90's. As confirmation, I acted upon that well before the end of that decade and concluded that I identified as gay. Around 2000, I became romantically involved with a woman that I had originally met a number of years before. That reminded me that I was still quite attracted to women. With that, I figured out that I was really bisexual and nothing has happened subsequently to make me adjust that.

So, but the time I first dressed in October of 2003, I had already sorted out my spin on sexuality.

DeeAnn

[wanda66]

Have always wanted a woman for my partner ..as a young man i had an encounter with a man ...didnt enjoy it much. Panties and silky garments always have aroused me to the point of ejaculating, ..I have crossedressed for 65 years,that thrill has never gone away, Iam a man dressed in female silky atire and i love each and every minute, I think i could enjoy an encounter with a trangender if the situation presented it self .

[Claire Cook]

Hi Tammy,

I'm with some others here. When I started dressing -- by 4 or 5 -- I had no idea what sex was about, just knew that the clothes made me feel good. All of my romantic or sexual experiences have been with women.

[Crystal Beth]

The tw issues were and still are seperate to me. I first dressed at age 5 or 6 and I loved the way I looked and the feel of the clothes. As I grew older, dressing was only about looking as good as I could with no thoughts about my sexuality. During a "pause" in my dressing, I was curious about sex with another male and explored that side and loved it! It was not until 10 years after my first of many encounters with men that I decided to mesh both worlds together. I do not need to be dressed to have sex with a man nor do I always want sex with a man while dressed as those urges are independent of dressing

[Tammy494]

It's been hard for me to post back to everybody, as there has been so much going on in my head. I'm simply a mess of confusion right now. Thanks for all of your replies, i see how sexuality is separate from the dressing now. When I approached him about everything that I had found, for the first time ever he didn't deny any of it or try to make up excuses that don't make sense. He sat down with me and as uncomfortable as it was, he answered my questions. His claims are that he is just exploring all aspects of dressing, and that he thought sissy was just another term for a crossdresser... Don't really know how true that is. But he says he's just been experimenting with everything and that he's open to looking at anything online that has to do with CDing. He claims all of it is connected to the dressing. Again, don't really know how true this is. We talked for a few hours and he says he has no interest in being with a man and is completely interested in women, and does watch regular porn, but that regular porn is so easy to find and is everywhere. He says he doesn't take anything seriously on there, and that he doesn't talk to any of his online friends regularly. I'm probably forgetting some of the explanations. I don't really know what to think, I want to believe him but with the stream of lies that have come out in the past year, I don't know if I can believe anything. He claims there are no
More secrets, that he loves me more than anything and that he knows I don't deserve to be treated like this. Says he felt guilty for lying but that's very hard for me to believe when I begged for the truth about his dressing for so long, with open arms and acceptance. Frankly this has made me feel less good about myself in many aspects, I feel
Like he only cares about himself and his needs and his kinks and part of me feels like maybe he doesn't even think about me when we have sex. Who knows..

[flatlander_48]

Unfortunately, no one said this would be easy. You both are dealing with some VERY strong issues. Gender Identity, and everything swirling around it, ain't no joke.

A few things come to mind for me based on what you said. Once people get their toe in the water regarding dressing, there can be a great acceleration as it feels like (and it would be true) that there is a lot to learn and a lot to catch up on. Women have maybe close to 2 decades to sort out socialization, behaviors, presentation (dressing), etc. in order to function in society. Folks who dress are just trying to get to the point where they don't feel quite so obvious about what they are doing, if they eventually want to go out in public. Even if going out is not the immediate thought, there is still the idea of trying to get a grasp on things. Remember that this is counter to how the vast majority of men have been socialized.

Compared to what happens for girls, teenagers and into young adulthood, and how they gain knowledge, for Crossdressers it is like 0-60 in a heartbeat. And further, they usually don't have a mother, aunt or grandmother helping them along by coaching and setting an example. You're just sort of out there alone unless you make contact with community groups, support groups, etc. Also, when you are an adult, it is more difficult to accept and adapt to new information. There are often threads here about now that they have made this discovery about themselves, what now; what's next? Anyway, I would imagine that there is a lot of churning going on.

Basically there has been a lot of dust kicked up. Maybe it might be good to let it settle for a while to allow some time to think about it.

DeeAnn

[ReineD]

Hi again Tammy, so sorry I didn’t see this thread earlier. I’m a supportive SO like you and I responded in your other threads.

This is more sexual for your boyfriend than it first appeared, which is understandable given his age. The sexual/thrill/excitement aspect tends to decrease with age (although not for everyone) and it tends to morph into dressing for comfort or stress reduction. Many older CDers label their need to dress as partial Gender Dysphoria (having a partial feminine gender identity) because they no longer feel the sexual impulses to the same degree, but really what they feel is a natural extension of what was once a strong sexual preference as opposed to a TS who doesn’t want a male body or be known by others as a male because she is not male. But, I digress, I just want to give you a bit of an overview. Knowing all of this is not helping you now.

So your quandary is, what to do with a partner who sources his sexual excitement from something or somewhere that is not you and is outside of his relationship with you. It really doesn’t matter whether he is hetero, bisexual or gay, does it. You would also feel bad if you caught him on a porn site that was strictly hetero and if you found flirty comments to GGs … even though as GGs, we can better compete if their attraction is to other GGs. So I understand your discomfort with the possibility that your SO has attractions to males since as GGs, we can hardly compete with that, whether or not these males present as women.

But, there is another source of attraction that is neither to males nor females, and this is to objects or fantasy situations. Right? People have all types of attractions that they label as kinks or fetishes. And so a lot of CDers are sexually turned on by an ability to excite others as females. Your bf is not lying when he says he doesn’t want to be with other people. What sets him off is being wanted as a sexy woman. This is why he posted those pictures and videos. I know this is hard to understand, but when he’s in that zone he doesn’t need to be with others since the source of his excitement are his fantasies of being a desirable woman and this is enough for him. There might come a time when just posting these things won’t be enough, and he might seek validation by actually being with someone whom he feels sees him as a desirable female, but there is a chance he will discover this doesn’t work for him either. Sometimes, being two male-bodied individuals in bed is enough to burst the fantasy bubble. Or, if the fantasy is particularly strong, he might be able to sustain it even while in bed with another male, but he will not want to form relationships with other males. If this makes sense.

It’s difficult when partners have sexual preferences that don’t match. It understandably makes the GG who is into her SO feel as though she is dispensable (even if the SO has the ability to get off both with the GG and with the other fantasies), because the GG doesn’t have the certainty that she is the greatest source of his sexual arousal.

I don’t understand enough about these types of sexual preferences to know how easily they can morph, but one way to get around them is to see if your SO is willing to pretend to be a sexy female with you in bed, in other words, see if he can get off on having sex as a lesbian with you (even though he doesn’t have a vagina), although I don’t know if this would be a turnoff for you or not. But I do suspect that his sexual preference for playing the part of the woman in bed is something that is strongly wired (as are all sexual preferences), and so if you need him to stop having those fantasies (if you want him to only want you like non-CDing men only want women) I don’t know if he will be able to, at least until he ages and his libido naturally decreases. You’ll need to talk to him about the true source of his sexual fantasies (if he can be honest) and see if the two of you can get on the same page.

Please keep in mind this is my best quess based on having read everything I’ve read here over the years and it certainly is not a pronouncement of your bf’s mindset. Good luck!

[MissVirginia-Mae]

I was never confused....I knew I always wanted to be a woman and im hopeful in a few years to become one 24/7

[PattyT]

I learned there are two souls living inside of me, and I let them coexhist in this way.[/QUOTE]

This pretty well sums up how I feel. One side of me is very masculine and have always be staight, with no homesexual inclination or desire to become a female. My romatnic relationships have always been with females. Yet ever since I can remember there has been this feminine side of me, and the dessire to express it by wearing female clothing. I guess you could say there are 2 souls living within me and now they finally coexist.

It seems that this is one CD category. Those who wish to become females perhaps fall into another CD category or even the transexual category. Perhaps there is a broad range of CD types. This is an interesting but tricky topic, however, and beyond my experience however, so I'll leave it at that.