Who can blame us

[ReineD]

But my question to you was if that specific moment when your SO at the restaurant told you that men consider a woman to be "accessible" if she wears a dress or a skirt, if that statement from your SO changed how you dressed from then on in similar situations? Have you heard this from any other men?

Not at all. As I said in my post #43, I have felt flattered when a man looked at me appreciatively. Whether or not his mind wanders to sex is not my concern, provided he behaves appropriately (no rude gestures, no rude comments, etc). The vast majority of men that I have interacted with in my life have behaved well. And no, I have not heard this from other men because I haven't asked them. I doubt my father, brother, brother-in-law, and adult sons would tell me the same thing my SO did, even if they feel the same way he does. And I've not asked my male friends, it has never come up. Maybe telling women what men really think violates the male code. lol

... I want to be part of that! I can not call up any of my male friends and say "I feel really sad today, I need to just talk to you about this for a little while", but I feel I could do that with a girl friend, except as a man I can't do it, I would have to first be accepted as one of the girls.

How unfortunate that you feel you cannot confide in your best friend. I have three adult male sons and I love the fact that they have male friends they can discuss emotional issues with. Their generation is so much better off I think. But I promise you that you CAN talk to women about anything and they will treat you just as they would a girlfriend. You don't have to get dressed up for that. We are very good at reading subtle body language cues and we can tell when someone, male or female, is being sincere about their emotional state of mind. We can tell whether or not a man has ulterior motives. I have had great talks with male friends about all sorts of things, just as if I was talking to a female friend. I have had close male friends since I was a teenager. Not many, but a few.

She doesn't "understand" it, but totally accepts that part of me without question or judgement.

I feel the same way about my SO.

I guess I just got triggered by whet felt like judgement. If you don't understand us, fine. But saying if we dress "a certain" way, we're trying to attract men and why would we do that if we're not gay?

Not all women dress specifically to look sexy, in fact most women I know do not dress like that on a day-to-day basis. My daughters-in-law have a non-complimentary word for women who put themselves out there just to go to the grocery store or out for brunch: heavy makeup, skirts that are too short, heels that are too high, tops that are too low-cut or too tight. We can tell if a GG is trying to get guys to look at her. It's OK for some venues like a night club, but not at work or around town doing day-to-day things. But, so many crossdressers seem to try to emulate the women that we GGs don't respect. Not all CDers, obviously, but a great many.

So if your style doesn't look like you're trying to attract a man, then these comments don't apply to you.