When I first arrived here some of u made me ashamed of my dressing!

[CONSUELO]

Sherry,

Good for you. I did not realize the you had been made to feel ashamed in this way. If I was a part of that I am sorry.
I know that when you read articles about cross dressing it seems that it is "OK" if it just satisfies some inner need to be feminine but hints of shame come in if sexual arousal is involved. Sometimes I get the impression from articles etc., that to dress and not feel any sexual urge is somehow a "superior" thing.
Well that is not how I look at it. I love to dress and when I do I frequently/mostly feel sexually aroused. The sight of my female "alter ego" is a great aphrodisiac and I no longer feel at all ashamed or embarrassed by this. I not only love being a cross dresser I thoroughly enjoy it and the sex is fantastic . It is an integral part of my makeup and has been a part of me since I was around 5 years old. Celebrate!!

[Teresa]

Sherry,
My Cding started by being tied up with the sexual component at the age of 8-9 years and that has never left me. It doesn't mean I didn't have normal relations with GGs but it gave that little extra. So I never felt guilty or ashamed of it before I married, now in my mid sixties it's gone full circle and the dressing and sex has come together again but at times I feel it frustrating that dressing often leads to it when I just want to enjoy the feeling of being dressed.

Maybe it's why I can't understand members when they say its' just a hobby , you don't usually feel guilty or ashamed or even worse self harm over just a hobby.
Sometimes if people don't understand they give you a hard time, looks like we're back to the tolerance question again !!

[Laurie A]

Sherry, sorry to hear you felt like you were not treated well. It's one thing to be misunderstood or shamed by the muggles, but its another to be shamed with in your own community. we all exist here somewhere on a spectrum that is outside the norm. i'm always reminded of the old expression: people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. there should be no room for intolerance here.

[StarrOfDelite]

Sherry, you and I joined this forum about the same time, although you've made many times as many posts as I. I can sympathize with your feelings at that time, but would like to make a few comments.

I get the sense that you joined Crossdressers when you were just beginning to embrace your feminine side, whereas I had been crossdressing, and sexually active with men for more than ten years wen I joined the forum. I had been discouraged by the community options available, which were mostly hookup chat rooms, and was looking for a respite from the "Meat Market" forums.

I made no secret that my sexual orientation was bisexual/pansexual/gay and I did feel for a year or two or three that many of the other posters were offended, or frightened by some of my posts, not because they were luridly descriptive or suggestive, but merely because they broached the subject of sexuality. There was a sizable minority of posters who under some inner impertive felt obliged to begin all their posts about sexuality and crossdressing with the comment that "I'm hetero and I never have wanted anything to do with males," irrespective of the tenor of the discussion. And, I felt somewhat uncomfortable by some of the censorship of my posts which were, in my opinion at least, rather innocuous.

I wasn't offended by this, and attributed such attitudes to the proposition that this was one of the few forums on the internet which had not, as of 2007, transitioned into being a semi-porn site filled with fantasy posts of sexual adventures, barely disguised adverts for true porno sites, and inquiries searching for hookups, et cetera. I also felt that the forum reflected the reality that probably 85%% of the crossdressers in the USA and UK are heterosexual, and were afraid that if their female SO's read the forum and saw posts from people whose sexual orientation was not hetero that the SO's would think their partner was really gay, as per their worst fears.

I'm rather pleased that crossdressers.com still is very much PG-13, and has not become one of the semi-porno sites. I'm also rather pleased that it has maintained that identity while becoming more open to free and open discussion of the legitimate interests of people who are not hetero.

I guess that the point of this post is that I don't think you were paranoid in 2007, but that the forum (which really is the totality of the membership) has become more open without losing its character. I'm pretty sure that almost every male person who has worn an item of female clothing, or has applied lipstick or worn eye shadow, has felt some sort of sexual charge the first few times he has done it I don't doubt that in 2007 there were some unwelcoming posters who might have made you feel shamed for having sexual feelings, but I'd suggest that maybe that was because they were ashamed of themselves for having similar.

[docrobbysherry]

Excellent points, Starr.

When I began dressing nearly 20 years ago, I thot I had become gay/bi because of my fantasies about men. And, it's the first thing that comes to most vanilla's minds when they find out u dress. That many here protest so much may be a result of trying to convince their SO's? And, maybe themselves?

This site has restrictions. But, the result is probably why I'm still here after so long. The conversations r value based and NOT about sex chat!
So many other chat sites sound like boy's locker rooms in high school. Boring!
And, I never worry about being hit on here. Which happens to me no matter what other online site I visit!