Stereotype

[Maria 60]

During the week we were digging our flower garden and the women next door came out and chatted with my wife. She was very concerned about her daughter's choice of boyfriend, her daughter is like a book worm usally to her self. I can't explain it but I'll explain how she described him like rough, aggressive and just not what she figured her daughter would be interested in.
Strangly my wife responded that some women like that tuff guy image next to them, almost like a form of protection or protector, almost like she probably feels safe when she out with him.
I found that interesting but didn't say anything until last night when I came home from work and showered and I went in the kitchen to help my wife with dinner. At one point I looked down and I was dressed male but had on panties and black pantyhose under my jeans. I seen my pantyhosed feet and remembered that discussion my wife had and for the first time I almost felt embarrassed. So I decided to ask her how she felt having me next to her wearing pantyhose and shaved body and sometimes dressed totally as a women. Does she feel I'm her protector and feel safe with me or does she feel that there's a sissy next to her.
My wife laughed at the question and told me it takes way more then a wig, dress and pantyhose to categorize me or any man as a sissy and that it doesn't take hair coming out of my shirt or tattoos to make me a tough masculine man. She was alittle disappointed in me because I'm the last person who looks at people in a stereotype way and I should know she is the same way.
I explained with the Covid I've been taking advantage and have been wearing pantyhose everyday more freely and even with just my pantyhosed feet showing to me it still feels so surreal that I'm able to do this so freely and maybe she wants to see a more masculine man instead of seeing some form of femine side more then she would like.
Well she reinsured me that even though I was wearing pink panties and pantyhose that I'm her man and if she thought differently she would have changed that thirty years ago.
It just seems like my mind never stops thinking, in this crossdressing journey our minds are always thinking how much further we want to go but I don't want the people around me to feel any pain. All it took was a comment from my wife to get the ball in the brain rolling and then having that conversation to make sure she isn't feeling any discomfort or embarrassment or if maybe I don't realize I'm taking to far.
Well I don't know if anyone else feels the same but I wanted to share. Thanks

[GretchenM]

Maria, I think your wife really gets the gender thing very well. Gender is not how we look but how we are as a person irrespective of the clothes. Turn the table around. Take your wife and dress her in the most masculine clothes you can imagine. Is she now a man?

Not on your life. She is still female. But then overhaul her brain so it produces strong masculine behavior and little or no behavior that we associate with being a woman. She is aggressive, bull headed, demanding loyalty to her (him) and her (him) alone, etc. Is she now a man? Behaviorally yes, very much so, but in fact she is still female and can still, at least at one time, capable of popping babies out of her body, with a man's help at least once.

The point is, gender is all about behavior and identity and not appearance. But the two do, in fact, tend to go together. Our female-like behavioral pattern generates the desire, even need, to dress the part. Not the other way around. At least for most. Yet some approach it in the opposite direction and they do so because that is the way their brain is configured in producing their behavior.

Once again, gender is about behavior resulting from an identity created by the brain, probably partly controlled by genetics and perhaps complimented by various levels and combinations of hormones all operating in a theater where experience produces a need to adapt yourself to fit your current situation as well as your long term history. Everything influencing everything else to create a unique person, YOU, who, at the level of fine detail, is unlike any other person on the planet. Apparently, it is all a complex network of interactions and no matter what you do you cannot alter yourself to fit the numerical average of Woman or Man. All you can do is be you and whatever that is or whatever, over time, that becomes is You. You are unique, you are beautiful.

But the clothes we wear, I think, is a way to communicate with others. To tell them, "Inside I am configured in a way that, to some degree, fits the way I look." The look does not generate the inner feelings but it expresses those feelings and creates an active interchange between the inner being and the outer expression. Nobody exactly knows how all that works or even where it comes from or why it even exists, but everybody experiences all those workings and the workings on the outside feed back into the inside to validate what is present there and tell you, "This is right. This is me."

And then the most wonderful thing happens. Your wife looks at you and says, "Even though you are wearing pink panties and pantyhose you are still my man and if I thought differently I would have changed that thirty years ago." She gets it. You are not a woman in her eyes; you are a man. She accepts you for who you are internally; not what you exhibit externally. Not male, not masculine, not female, not feminine, but just simply YOU, the wonderful person she shares her life with.

[Stephanie47]

For me it has always been a situation of "risks vs rewards." Being married to the same woman for fifty years my wife is thrown into the occasion. No man is an island unto himself. What I do or what my wife does may have unintended consequences. From all your posts I think your wife has a pretty good handle on who you are. I suspect, if you were to go too far, she would let you know. Rein you in. It's a communication issue.

I've learned over the years looking at someone really does not give to a rock solid idea of what anyone may be. All talk and no action? The pussycat turns into a wildcat? The neighbor girl may find that "protective" air may turn into a possessiveness on the scale of spousal abuse. I will say, beware of the guy who wear pantyhose and pink panties. If he has the balls enough to wear that, what else is he capable of doing? Sometimes you do not want to find out.

[Pumped]

My wife and I have had a similar conversation too. She laughed and said even though I am not a big guy, 5'10" and 175 pounds she said tough shouldn't be judged by size or clothing!

She brought it up again the other day. A month ago I crashed my motorcycle, dislocated my left collar bone, cut open the side of my head, road rash all over, rode the motorcycle home. She got home right after it happened and I was visiting with a guy about buying a motorcycle from me. I was covered in blood, holding my left arm just standing there visiting like nothing happened. The guy I was visiting with was about freaking out, wanting to call 911. He left, I went in and cleaned up and then realized I looked like I just walked off the set of a horror movie, blood all over. I changed clothes and hopped in the car to go to the emergency room. I week later I my wife came home and I was fully dressed, bra and forms, dress, hip pads, hose and heels. She kind of chuckled and said obviously I was feeling better and then some comment about looking like a beat up tough guy a week before, and now all femmed up!