Book

[sabrinaedwards]

I recently read a book, "Men in Bras, Panties and Dresses". This is a nonfictional book written by a British Doctor. The book is based on the results of a survey that the doctor completed. There were some pleasing results for us crossdressers. First his results show that we are more sane than the average male population. Secondly, he says that he would prescribe cross dressing over medications for anxiety and stress! Wow. I know that some of you are in DADT relationships like I am. I feel the guilt of crossdressing and this book helped to alleviate some of that guilt.
Love, Sabrina

[Gillian Gigs]

The book is by Dr. Vernon Coleman, who is well known British Doctor and CD'er himself. He has written many articles and has been outspoken in the area of crossdressing. He has written several books and you can read many of his articles by going on line.

[Micki_Finn]

If what you say is true, and was written my a paychologist who is a CDer himself, I don’t know that we can trust any of his scientific writings on the subject to be objective and unbiased.

[Crissy 107]

Interesting point Micki.
Crissy

[docrobbysherry]

Except that from personal experience I discovered the more I restricted my dressing, the more the desire struck me!

As soon as I gave in and began dressing whenever the mood came over me; day, nite, at work, at home, the sooner I came to an agreeable arrangement with myself!

That I would dress whenever the impulse to dress hit me. As a result, I found I was quite satisfied to dress about once a week! That was over 10 years ago and I don't seem to feel that same, "I must dress now", urge anymore!

So, u folks that r not able to satisfy your dressing desires because of personal situations or your unaccepting SO, may suffer unneeded stress as the Doc predicts!

[biancabellelover]

Great lead! I’ve Just done some quick google research on Vernon Coleman. He sounds like an ‘interesting’ person. I’ll be ordering his book so I can read the details of his survey, but I agree with Micki. If you take note of his other book titles, you could be forgiven for thinking that very little of his work is objective in any way, shape, or form.

This link is from his website.

http://www.vernoncoleman.com/soupset.htm

I’m not saying that I disagree with what he’s written, just a bit cautious.

Michelle

[Gillian Gigs]

Sorry, I can't agree with you Micki_Finn. I think he is writing in an unabashed fashion saying how he feels about something that really shouldn't be that big a deal. I can't agree with some of his topics, but personally I am glad for his honest approach to the subject fo CD'ing. We need more educated people like him to bring CD'ing into the light of day. Let's face it, no-one is totally unbiased to any subject, and to me it is nice to read something favourable from a high profile person.

[Beverley Sims]

Interesting, here is a bunch of CD'ers trying to dismiss him because he is a CD'er himself.

Does make me wonder about some threads such as why cant men wear dresses when women can wear pants without being ostracised. :-).

[Lynn Sealy]

One of the reasons to dismiss him is he is an alt-right conspiracy theory spouting misogynist.

[biancabellelover]

Hi Beverley,

Before we get too far down the rabbit hole, no-one is

trying to dismiss him because he is a CD'er himself.

ONE person, Micki_Finn, questioned the books objectivity based on the good doctor being a CD'er. And Micki is right in questioning this. It's fair to point out that questioning his objectivity is not in any way "dismissing him". In a similar fashion, whenever a controversial scientific paper is released, people demand that it's "peer-reviewed", in order to assess it for (amongst other things) any bias.

I was the only one "dismissing" him, and it had nothing to do with whether he was a Cross Dresser. My concern is that after reading more about Dr Coleman, he appears to be a crusader. We need crusaders in our society, but my experience of them is that whenever they get passionate about something, objectivity goes out the window. I couldn't care less whether he's a CD'er or not. What I want to do is to buy his book, look at his survey results, and look at the conclusions he's made from them.

Michelle.

[Rachelakld]

Funnily enough, I also feel like I'm more sane than non-crossdressers.
Looking at it, I don't suffer from depression, anxiety (unless wife has my credit card), gender dysphoria or anything else.

Actually, being British myself, it's well known crossdressing is more "normal", "popular" in England than Morris Dancing (Just watch any "carry on" movie).

[DaisyLawrence]

Indeed Rachel but Morris dancing is sooooo much fun as well.

[Sami Brown]

I bought this book over the weekend and am enjoying it so far. It seems objective on the surface.

Sami

[Rachelish]

One of the reasons to dismiss him is he is an alt-right conspiracy theory spouting misogynist.

Thanks, I followed that up and it seems you're right. It's a shame to see someone with such wisdom on crossdressing abandon it for most other topics.

[MonicaGirly]

Sounds like an interesting read. I wrote a paper last winter for my Human Sexuality class final. It was a conglomerate of a few different research papers done on crossdressing and relationships. I was pretty proud of it even though it only earned a B- lol

[biancabellelover]

Well, I bought it ($3.95 or something like that on Kindle) and it was a pretty easy read.

My thoughts on the book are below. I'd like to say at this point: I'm just giving my thoughts on this book. I don't care if Dr Coleman is or isn't a cross-dresser, nor do I care about his other theories on life or the world around us, and where he sits on the political spectrum. What I've written is just about the book (I have made a reference to other books he's written, but only with reference to his method; not content).

So...

His book is based on a survey that he distributed. He doesn't say how, but from excerpts in the book I inferred that it (the survey) was published in a newspaper. He received a little over 1000 respondents.

The book begins with a mash of introduction, terminology, history and then goes onto the survey.

There were 20 questions in the survey; In my opinion all typical questions that you might expect from a survey of crossdressers. Such as:

• How old were you when you started?
• Why do you do it? (choice of five answers, pick as many as appropriate)
• Do you go out of the house dressed? (Yes/No)
• Have you ever had sex with another man? (Yes/No)
• Does your partner know? (Yes/No)
• etc.

He goes through each question and gives the survey results for that question (e.g. 23% Yes, 77% No, etc). He then gives his commentary of the results and his analysis. Lastly, he includes quotes from survey respondents on that particular question. He then goes onto the next question.

At the end there is a conclusion.

As a book, it reads like something produced by someone commissioned to conduct a detailed survey, rather than a piece of non-fiction.

What did I think?

It's a bit... "I'm glad I only spent a few dollars and a few hours on it".

Around three quarters of the book are anecdotes (his "quotes from cross-dressers"). Many are sad or poignant, but also there are some that are matter-of-fact, and some are uplifting and humorous. But nearly all of the anecdotes in the book are similar to ones that can be read here or in the TG/Gender non-binary or Transsexual forums.

I have trouble with his methodology. As far as I can see, he published his survey in a newspaper. We aren't told which one(s). So we don't know the reader demographic (For those that aren't Brits, a completely different class of people will read 'The Sun' as opposed to 'The Times'), or their nationality (I'm assuming all the respondents were British). It can't have been a cheap exercise, as it looks like the survey, instructions, etc, would take up around a quarter of a page of a tabloid paper. So where and how often he published the survey could have a significant impact on the results.

I also have problems with his "quotes from cross-dressers". As I said, most of the book are these quotes. The problem I have is that the quotes (to my eyes) are all written in same style with similar phrasing. He may have paraphrased them for his book, or it may be that his reader demographic could ALL be well-educated people from a similar class and background. I'd like to think that he didn't simply write them all himself.

I have major problems with some of his assumptions and conclusions. Apart from "In My Experience", there is nothing to support his claim that 10% of the population regularly cross-dress to some extent. His claim that cross-dressers live longer has no evidence to back it up. He made a claim that ALL workaholics are the way they are because they weren't loved as children. There are plenty more claims made without referring to any published papers, journal studies, or any other factual basis.

In fact, he makes no effort to back up any of his points (this is a complaint in other books he's written).

However, many of the points he makes are ones that most of us would agree, such as cross-dressing relieving stress. These points (and there are many of them) are mixed with his more outrageous conclusions. The problem is, is that the more agreeable points and conclusions are also not backed up with anything meaningful.

Many of the points in his general conclusion have no connection to anything presented in the survey. Some of his points were introduced in the conclusion.

Such as this one, put here without further comment:

"While women have enlarged their role in society (and have, as a result benefitted in many ways) men have been pushed further and further into their destructive and damaging masculinity."

Anyway.

So my thoughts on the book are that it has some interesting anecdotes, the survey results are interesting (if you can trust them) and that's about it. Nothing you could hang your hat on, especially if you were using this book as any kind of validation. The conclusions in the book can only be described as the opinion of the author, because he doesn't back any of it up with any kind of study or evidence.

Michelle

[Taylor186]

Another point is that this book, with a quoted March 2014 publication date (on Amazon), is just a renamed, Kindlized version of his 1995 book, 'Men in Dresses,' that was freely available for many years on his website: but no longer. I now have both (yes. a waste of $2.99).

There is no science in this book what-so-ever so take any quoted statistic with a grain-of-salt. Frankly, you'll get a better understanding of twenty-first century crossdressing by reading the Crossdressers.com boards.

[Aunt Kelly]

Interesting, here is a bunch of CD'ers trying to dismiss him because he is a CD'er himself.

Does make me wonder about some threads such as why cant men wear dresses when women can wear pants without being ostracised. :-).

Noooo... Here are a few people dismissing the notion that his book is anything like scholarly and objective. I suspect that it is worth a read, but certainly not as anything more than the personal views of one of our peers.

[Anne E]

... he says that he would prescribe cross dressing over medications for anxiety and stress!
Love, Sabrina

I live with chronic pain. I know that it's less on the days when I dress.

Anne

[sometimes_miss]

The webpage 'Why do men wear dresses' looks like something written 30 years ago, based upon reading that page, because so much known information looks to be lacking. So basically, what he has are the results of a survey of 1000 crossdressers who actively wanted to be included in it. That's kind of like standing outside McDonalds and asking how many people like cheeseburgers and what they like on them, and why they think they do. So much for that being a good random sample, which might be representitive of the general population of crossdressers. It's kind of hard to believe that any man of science would assume that this kind of research would be considered valid by any educated person; maybe he's banking on the idea that he can sell his material to the ignorant? I don't know. But we can just as well toss out most any conclusions that were made by this, and it's sort of sad that people will now start using this as a reference to define us and our lives. It might seem like interesting light reading, but as far as giving us any useful stats or insight, well, no.

[Tracii G]

All he can write about are his experiences and opinions and as we all know opinions are like ^$$ holes....... everybody has one.
What he says should not be taken as fact by any means.
I know some here read a lot on the subject and perhaps thats the reason they are so confused.

P.S. don't anyone get mad at me if you are a fan of this guy I was just pointing out the fact its all opinion and no absolutes.

[Kiwi Primrose]

I don't have hangups or anxiety attacks or guilt or feelings of shame. Nor do I take notice of non-fiction studies of crossdressing. I get much entertainment reading crossdressing fiction, something that you don't need to take seriously.

[Ressie]

Thanks biancabellelover for your comprehensive synopsis in post 16. The good news is I can now say that my Dr. prescribed crossdresser instead of medical marijuana!

[t-girlxsophie]

If the survey came from certain sections of the British MSM "Daily Mail,The Sun" etc I wouldn't trust it that much

Personally I've always enjoyed Grayson Perry's musings on Crossdressers,even met him once while he was making a documentary a good few years ago (that even earned myself a 5 seconds of fame appearance on tv lol)

Sophie