Quote Originally Posted by ReineD View Post
...To every one, re women wearing men's clothes:
Please stop imagining, in your mind's eye, the stereotypical butch lesbian who might in fact wear men's clothes purchased in men's stores. She does not represent the vast majority of women. Instead, look around at what the women you see every day are wearing. Look at your neighbor. Look at women at the mall and the grocery stores. Look at the women you work with at your company's summer picnic. Examine their clothes and tell me if you think they bought them in men's stores. Next, tell me how you know that their clothes were not bought in men's stores. This is how you will learn that there is a difference between women's casual clothes and men's clothes... :p
I know that this is a pet peeve of yours, Reine, and one that you've expressed on numerous occasions and in various other posts. Yes, we get it - the "men's" clothes that most women happily wear are are feminized versions of the male equivalent, allowing for the different body proportions that women have and sometimes specifically tailored to be form-fitting and to hug the curves that some might possess. But it doesn't address the question of why the fascination with male-inspired clothing when the real deal is so bland and boring compared to the choices they have available to them amongst their traditionally female wardrobes.

Why this constant reference to "menswear", "the boyfriend jacket", "boy shorts", "boy cut jeans", and "borrowed from the boys" etc., as though fashion inspired by what men typically wear is somehow aspirational and the Holy Grail of avant-garde fashion? The equivalent really doesn't exist on the male side, and I have yet to see kilts being advertised to Scotsmen on the basis of having a style "borrowed from the girls" to somehow make them must-have items of clothing.

I think the real answer is that we crossdressers still tend to fetishize female clothing as being the forbidden fruit that society typically denies us through peer pressure, so wearing these items gives us a high because it is so deliciously subversive and allows us to thumb our noses at convention, even if done in secret. And of course, the secondary "rush" is the omnipresent risk of potentially being "caught" in the act at any moment, which the adrenalin junkies among us really get off on.

For women, there is little of that sexual stimulation involved in wearing male-inspired clothing. For them, it's all about "empowerment", and continuing to break down the walls of whatever male bastions still exist. Of course, the irony here lies in the way that more and more transgender male models are successfully infiltrating the female fashion scene these days, and how some of the TG beauty pageants (especially those in Thailand and the Philippines) are starting to rival the more traditional Miss Universe-style pageants. And now, the gals are starting to cry out "no fair" when they see the type of entitlement which they were always used to slowly beginning to erode away...

What's good for the goose...