Some transvestites 'come out' to their wives, if to nobody else. TV discussion groups are full of the angst they feel about this. Many transvestites are divorced because of their confession. Others live with women who cannot understand but will tolerate their husband's strange behaviour - women who then also bear the burden of hiding the weirdness of their home lives from their own friends and family.
I do not believe that transvestitism is something which can easily be 'integrated' into a man's personality. From what I have said about my beliefs about the origins of transvestitism, it should be no surprise that I see it as an alien growth on the male psyche, not a natural part of being human that most men somehow repress. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the attempt to integrate transvestitism into one's self-image can seriously distort the transvestite's view of himself and the world. The view that transvestitism is merely an expression of an innate 'feminine side' to our nature is not helpful in explaining why it happens, who is affected and why transvestitism is experienced just the way it is. Men trying to cope with transvestitism often appear to have quite fragmented images of themselves and of their gender and, sometimes, serious confusion about their sexual orientation - all of which is quite understandable if we think of transvestitism as an abnormal and disfiguring growth on the side of an otherwise normal psyche.
The conclusion I have come to is that there is no way of 'dealing' with transvestitism and there is certainly no 'cure'. All that sufferers can hope for is to be able to cope with it. That is, we need to find ways of managing transvestitism so that it does not damage or impoverish our lives too much, so that we protect our loved ones from the harm it can do to them, and so that we can still enjoy and benefit from the positive aspects of this most peculiar affliction.
The first step to coping with transvestitism is to understand what it is. I have a 'working hypothesis' that satisfies me for the moment but I have no doubt that there will be many others who strongly disagree. It is also worth remembering that I wouldn't need this website if I was 100% confident that I really understand what transvestitism is all about. So remember that everything I say here about coping is predicated on my current, imperfect understanding and take it with a pinch of salt.
First of all, we each have to decide who is going to know about our transvestitism. In a perfect world, we'd all just come out and and everyone would accept us. But the world isn't like that. If I am right about the causes of transvestitism, then normal people are programmed to dislike transvestites as much as we are programmed to be transvestites. Even if I'm wrong, there is no denying a strong negative sentiment in people in general towards cross-dressing males. There is also a lot of confusion about the relationship between cross-dressing and homosexuality. There is a general distrust of, fear of, and hostility towards any kind of sexual 'perversion' and, to top it all, a common aversion to anyone who is in any way different. This isn't to say that every transvestite who comes out is shunned or vilified by his friends and neighbours. I don't want to exaggerate this. But the mere fact of being different in this way means that, if you reveal it, it will alter your relationships with the people around you - almost certainly adversely - and it will begin to define you socially.
Personally, I refuse to be defined by a minor aberration in my sexual make-up. My transvestitism is a secret therefore except from my wife. I have revealed it to my wife because:
- I was confident that she loved me enough to tolerate the fact for my sake.
- I knew I could count on her to keep my secret.
- It would have been intolerable to have had such a big secret between us.
- I selfishly hoped she would allow me to cross-dress at home.
- She too now has the burden of this secret - with none of the benefits.
- While she tolerates my cross-dressing, she cannot understand it and this has caused a little distance between us.
The question of who should be in on the secret is also a matter of how strong the urge to cross-dress is felt by each individual. Some transvestites are satisfied to cross-dress only rarely. Some, although the need is greater, can go for years without giving in to it if circumstances require them to.
For some transvestites, the Web, email, chat rooms, support groups and outings to transvestite clubs and bars allow them to talk about their issues to like-minded and understanding people, or just to be themselves in the company of people who do not condemn them. Part of this need to socialise is the perfectly normal desire by transvestites to find a society in which they do not feel like outsiders and freaks. My own view is that, by my own definition, I am a freak but I am quite unusual in not caring much about it . It is hard to get reliable statistics on how common transvestitism is so I don't know just how freakish to feel but my impression is that it is a lot more common than most people believe. What is more, it is a normal and natural phenomenon, something which probably arises out of the natural variability of the human developmental process. While being a transvestite has its difficulties and drawbacks, it is probably only as rare as being extremely tall or short and is probably easier to live with.
Accepting this view is important in finding an appropriate way to cope with transvestitism. Self-delusion is not coping and will most likely lead to undesirable consequences. For example, if I believed that transvestitism was caused by men getting in touch with their 'feminine side', I might wrongly conclude that any man could be educated into appreciating cross-dressing. This could lead me to evangelise the practice to my friends and family. It might also lead me to adopt misguided child-rearing practices.
As well as guiding one’s dealings with the rest of the world, one’s model of the causes of transvestitism help one to find an appropriate model of one's own Self. Here, my beliefs about why I am a transvestite mean that:
- I don't try to convince myself that I am a male and a female person in one body. Disintegrating one’s personality like that cannot be healthy.
- I can accept that I am a whole and complete male with all the usual masculine traits and desires - but with an unusual oddity in one small area of my character.
- My desire to look and act feminine is bounded. That is, although the urge is strong in me, knowing its relationship to the rest of my life helps me control it when I need to.
- I don't worry about my sexual orientation.
- I don't worry about making myself look exactly like a woman, perfecting 'the illusion', or 'passing' for a woman. This urge is best satisfied if I don't use externally-set, objective criteria of feminine appearance. I can feel better about myself if I don't judge myself that way. After all, I don't need to compete for a male like a woman does - I just need to make myself happy.
- I can understand my wife's inability to understand me - not just sympathise but really understand it. Apart from the kind of abstract, evolutionary explanations I gave in my essay on causes, there really is no explanation for this kind of innate drive that would satisfy anyone. Such things are like emotional atoms from which our personalities are built — there is no looking inside them.
- I can understand it that my wife finds me physically unattractive when I'm cross-dressed. After all, if our roles were reversed and she was trying to look like a man (with a false beard, her breasts strapped down flat and a fake penis in her jockey shorts) I'm pretty sure I wouldn't find it a turn-on!
For some transvestites, I see a bold attempt to make a virtue out of a necessity. These men flaunt their cross-dressing, they affirm the positive and glamorous aspects of being 'transgendered' and they re-organise their lives and relationships so that cross-dressing can become a primary focus for enjoyment and social interaction. I have no data on how this works out for them. I find it hard to believe that this represents a long-term coping strategy and I suspect they may be more unhappy afterwards than when they started. Nevertheless, I salute their courage and I envy them their freedom to act out their desires - however briefly. Some of these people also attempt to politicise transvestitism, trying to help transvestites to be able to live and work openly while cross-dressed. They seek a reduction or elimination of the social stigma attached to cross-dressing and they seek appropriate medical and legal treatment for transvestites. Again, this is a brave and laudable thing to do and I wish them every success. I suspect that such people will not like my ideas and I look forward to hearing their persuasive arguments for other points of view.
14 comments:
Thank you for this. I have been crossing dressing since my early years and have largely keep it to my self. It has been difficult and whilst from time to time I feel I have overcome the urge sooner or later it comes back.
Your article has to some degree helped me to put the whole thing into some perspective. Hopefully it will help me cope in future better than I have up to now.
Hello John,
Your on-line ruminations about this odd affinity we possess to be pretty and sexy was extremely well done. It boggles my mind why it has not had more in the way of feedback. Both from those who study this affliction and those who live it.
Sure would like to see more of what you have to say in 2008.
Michelle PJ
Thanks Michelle. I'm surprised by the lack of comments too. It certainly isn't because of a lack of traffic as the site gets plenty of visitors. I can only assume that people are shy ;-)
If that's the case, let me suggest the following to everyone reading. Dress up in your sexiest outfit, put on your highest heels and tightest dress, then sit down and give me your thoughts. I find looking my best gives me extra confidence and makes me more talkative too!
Thanks for your thoughtful insights. I can relate to most of your points. I find interesting your theory regarding attractiveness, it makes sense and I need to think about it more.
Having accepting my transvestitism behavior for some years now, I still struggle with the "urge", it can be like a cloud over me for days at a time - very consuming. It only goes way, most times, once I either dress up or have sexual release or both. I love being dressed you but hate the "urge". For years I have tried to gain understanding of the urge but no success. It is at it's strongest when I'm tiresome and stressed.
Anyway Thanks!
To Maryanne,
.."For years I have tried to gain understanding of the urge but no success. It is at it's strongest when I'm tiresome and stressed.."
The urge comes because you need to love and enjoy yourself. That lifts the tired and stressed out feelings. We pleasure ourselves with selflove.
Dear John,
Your outstanding essay makes much sense, and I have not much to say about, apart it is very well-done and that I share approximately your way of thinking. I especially share the exhaustive list of your beliefs about why to be a transvestite mean.
As for << the transvestites [who] affirm the positive and glamorous aspects of being transgendered >>, I believe they don’t represent exactly the same variety of CDers as both of you, and I would think they are better known as (quasi)full-timeTG or even TS. They are denying (more or less) their male nature, whereas both of us clearly refuse to go that far, I mean, as both of us prefer to accept the observation facts, the scientific reality and are mainly seeking for the truth, instead of believing in what we would wish the reality were.
Even if those hereafter are not representative of the deepest matter of your essay, I selected a few excerpts among all them I found very well thought and written.
<< If I am right about the causes of transvestitism, then normal people are programmed to dislike transvestites as much as we are programmed to be transvestites. >>
<< While being a transvestite has its difficulties and drawbacks, it is probably only as rare as being extremely tall or short and is probably easier to live with. >>
<< For example, if I believed that transvestitism was caused by men getting in touch with their 'feminine side', I might wrongly conclude that any man could be educated into appreciating cross-dressing. This could lead me to evangelise the practice to my friends and family. >>
And finally I chose to react at this specific sentence of yours, in order to give you new stuff of observation for refining your thinking.
<< It isn't hard to pretend to be normal because, in every other way, the transvestite is normal. >>
You can say I’m normal in every way but my CDing. I do feel normal and I have lived up to now a normal living, and in many ways pretty brighter than average. I’m your typical Introvert although very passionnate, curious, with many interests in life, having already met most of my objectives and certainly without any depressive tendancies.
I have had lifelong however the elusive feeling to be a somewhat special individual, not well understood by others, sometimes even marginal. I have also done considerable questioning about me and my linking to others and have been studying for decades much practical psychology.
I am convinced to have underestimated for most of my life, the meaning and importance of my CDing, only wanting to see in it a mere innocent fantasy not deserving to be shared with anybody. Now, I realise it must have been a much more decisive characteristic of my life.
The most intriguing weakness in my life has ever been my relation to women.
Although masculine and athletic, a born competitor, a successful student, and a good-looking boy as well, I was very shy with girls and was not able, as a teenager or young adult, even to date them. I was much (intellectually) attracted to them but reluctant to turn into reality what I could imagine in my mind. I have done for years (mostly aged 15-35) much (and secret) writing for the sake of praising my platonic loved ones, as a pure drive to the elusive superlady.
Although I probably have a few brain peculiarities (as for instance a milder form of something like the Asperger Syndrome or so) what might also explain my tendancy to present as a girl , I’m convinced that my CDing developped mainly under strong environmental influences. My mother wanted a girl, dressed me when a baby as a girl, and contributed to transmit to me as a child a very bad image of any man dating a woman. So that I grew older wanting to be different from the standard man and not behaving such as a dirty one dating a woman. I was waiting on the lady who would love me uniquely for my purity and absence of (dirty) seductive behaviour. Maybe I wanted and needed to be myself this lady instead...
Of course that lady never came to me, or if she ever did it, I have not been able to respond adequately to her so that I left her go away.
In the ignorance of what meant a healthy relation between a man and a woman, I finally married in my 40’s a bad and wrong chosen woman, the unhappy marriage ending in the distress of a child and a conflicting divorce after more than a decade of hell.
Whatever was the past, it is the past, and that bad experience helped me to grow a lot, so that I was later able to have a better look at the women and at my CDing. Since that era, I believe to have been able to choose the right and loving SO, I have come out to her, gone outside of the closet and come somewhat to a deeper understanding of life and human relations, even if much progress is still to be done.
In any case, I would not vote for having been myself the perfect instance of your essentially « normal » guy, normal apart of dressing sometimes in women clothes...
Love
Nadia-Maria
P.S. The link I showed above (click on my name) do point to the CD forum crossdressers.com where your blog is being discussed at the moment.
Dear John,
I'm not entirely sure that transvestism gets worse as time progresses. My experience has been a little different. I started wearing my sisters panties
much earlier than my interest in sex. My mother would occasionally dress me in my sisters panties primarily because she was not the best house keeper and could not keep up with the laundry. I was the youngest of four children and my mother was a business woman and worked outside the home. I have very distinct memories of wearing yellow panties as early as 5 years old. At that time, it obviously was not a sexual experience. Later, however, it did develop as a sexual fantasy as you will. At least, I did enjoy masturbating while wearing panties and other lingerie. Reading your own experience, I very much agree or at least relate to your experiences and self analysis. At 11 or 12, my urge to wear lingerie was nearly insatiable. I would either steal my sisters panties or steal them from clothes lines throughout the neighborhood late at night. By the time I was dating, I would sometimes steal them from my girlfriends or their sisters. By the time I could drive, I would occasionally summon the courage to buy teddies and panties in department stores. But mostly, I was a clothesline thief.
I don't know if it was guilt, as much as I think it was fear of getting caught that made me purge my collection so many times throughout the years but one thing for sure, when I did purge, the need to do so seemed just as powerful as the desire to cross-dress.
The progression of my experiences only seemed to move forward as my ability to access and obtain the things of my desire increased. I never turned gay, never dreamed or fantasized about having gay experiences or never desired to turn into a woman, have SRS, or live full time as a woman. I just think that somehow my mother introduced me to something that I later associated as feminine and I have always been comforted by seeing myself dressed as such. In fact, my desire for yellow panties has always been stronger than any other. And yes, I also think that I am sexy when wearing lingerie even though most people would strongly disagree.
I can't imagine ever not being strongly attracted to the sight and feel of ladies undergarments, especially sexy, satiny, panties. I think that when I am 80 years old, I will still get aroused by such things as it is just as much a part of me as my curly hair. In all other respects, I am an outwardly masculine and (I'm told) handsome heterosexual male. I love everything about women and though I feel as if I have strong feminine personality traits, I love being a man.
I am now in my mid forty's, in my second marriage, and only own panties for underwear. My wife accepts my wearing panties as long as they are not too lacy. I no longer experiment with other types of lingerie or have strong sexual ties to the wearing of panties. In fact, sometimes when I do masturbate, I have to wear my wife's panties and not my own, in order to do so. This does perplex me but it also reinforces to me that my attraction is to the things that represent my love of women, not necessarily the object itself.
Now, it is more a feeling of what is natural for me to do and not necessarily a sexually stimulating fetish. My experience has come more full circle by my wife's and my own acceptance of the truth of who I am. I am in a good place and hope to find others such as yourself who can not only express themselves physically, but who can also write of their experiences as coherently as you are able to do.
Thank you for your contribution to my own self identity and others who perhaps have not been able to so readily see the true nature of their desires.
Chris
Nice to see there are others like me. I am male hetrosexual and married twice.
I started Cross dressing when I was about 12, at night with my sisters cloths. I was very careful to put it back as it was.
Couple of things I have noticed is
The desire to cross dress is high when you are alone and no girl friend or wife or when she avoid having sex.
Mostly cross dressing cause arousal and ends up in masterbating.
I have a strong desire to dress in young womens cloting and walk the street or go shopping. I have done that several time in far away towns as I am afraid of being noticed in the local area
How do I get my cloths ? I do buy from cheap discounted shops or from second hand cloths shops
I do use some foam or sponge cut to breast shape under the bra to give the appearance.
Some times I feel I want to live full time cross dressed.
Your writings seem to be unique on the Internet in speaking to perhaps the majority of us, who don't want to go "all the way" into public crossdressing but enjoy it in private.
I just told my wife a few weeks ago and the boat of our marriage has been rocked, almost swamped. I don't know whether she can live with knowing that I'll still indulge in private during business trips. My ultimate goal would be to get her to accept me wearing lingerie in bed. Yet how can she do that, when she's attracted to me as a man? Some women can enjoy their husband's or boyfriend's crossdressing for themselves, not just as something they put up with, but they're in the minority and most of us don't happen to marry one. This "quirk" seems best suited to solitary self-love. Telling my wife felt like relief, not having to keep a secret, feeling guilty for doing so, fear of being found out, and fear of ending up pathetically successful in hiding that facet of me all my life... and yet now that I've told her, I wonder whether honesty (sixteen years after we met, in my case) was the honorable, manly thing to do. Maybe I should have just kept it for myself. So far I can't see one thing positive in having told her. I'm "relieved" of the burden of guilt--for what? Just to lay it on her shoulders? There's no easy answer.
Thanks John it really helps to hear others voicing the same difficulties of understanding crossdressing that I have had all my life.
I think I was 5 when I first wanted to dress as a girl I had a dream about going to school in a dress it is one of my earliest memories.
I would sneak into my Mums closet and put on her clothes. This started when I was about 5 or 6 (my memories of that age are not very well filed!) I didin't know what sex was and so I agree that there was no sexual side to it.
Later I started to be turned on by the experience getting an erection but never actually ejaculating (I never learnt to masturbate until I was 21 I seem to need a lot of stimulation to ejaculate. This hasn't changed I have to delve deep into fantasy in order to orgasm. Physical stimulation on it's own just is not enough.
I had a few girlfriends during my teens but never told any of them about my desire I enjoyed kissing them but rarely got an erection for any length of time.
Any attempts at sex left me feeling humiliated as I couldn't get an erection. Having never even masturbated I was totally confused as to what to do.
During my twenties I kissed a girl once I was so embarrassed that I would have to have sex and fail to perform I was left literally shaking. Not the most attractive response to a kiss. Needless to say the girl ran a mile.
The first person I told was my friend James when I was 17 I just had to tell someone and he was the most openminded person. To his credit he just replied, "that's OK mate"
When I was 21 I was wearing some knickers and rubbing myself when to my surprise I ejaculated.
During my twenties I started to tell other people around me about my crossdressing and on the whole the reactions were things like, "why are you telling me?" or "er OK"
When I was 27 I went to a music festival and saw a guy wearing some sort of fetish gear and I just thought "sod it" If he can wear a green spandex body suit I can put on a skirt. I went and bought one went back to my friends with a smile and they accepted it! There were a few comments but nothing negative just interest in why I would want to do such a thing.
The next day at the festival I bought a dress and spent the rest of the festival happily dancing in a field it was out in the open and my friends didn't care it was great and I am a lucky man for having such good friends.
My friend Liz said that I should tell my parents. I knew immediately that she was right. Why?
Why?
Because I had a deep fear that they would find out and I live by the rule that you should face your fears because when you do you discover that they are just illusions constructed by your mind.
Nonetheless it was one thing knowing she was right and another telling my parents.
When I drove home from the festival I was still wearing the dress. I got back to my house my nieghbour called me from over the fence. I quickly took of the dress and changed into my "normal" clothes. I was so angry with myself afterwards because I had sucumbed to fear.
The next day my Mum and sister turned up without warning and over a cup of tea (I am from England) I told her. It was fine. She said she had suspected as much(obviously my attempts to put her clothes back exactly as I found them were not successful)
I resolved to tell my Dad as soon as possible. It took a week or 2 before the timing was right but I did it.
He was very uncomfortable discussing it and didn't really wnat to know. He thought I should keep these sort of things to myself. He thought it was just a fetish and I couldn't explain (and still can't) why it wasn't just a sexual thing.
So the cat was out of the bag. And during the next year I started wearing various outfits to the local shops and pubs and on the whole got laughed at by people until they realized I just didn't care (sometimes they just kept on laughing) At places like music festivals where people are a little more open minded people just smiled as I smiled at them.
A little over a year ago I lost my virginity. I was 30. Unfortunatley the relationship didn't last but it was not due to my crossdressing (I am sorry to say she was married and I didn't stop to consider her husbands feelings. When I realised she had been lying to me aswell as her husband I ended it.)
I am single again and still crossdress in public from time to time although not as often as when I first "came out".
I think being open about being a transvestite is important for our mental health. The fear of being found out is something that can niggle away at you. Ask yourself who it is that you are most afraid of finding out your secret? Why are you afraid of them finding out? Is this fear rational? No.
It is not. Most Fear is not rational. The only fear that is rational is the fear that stops us from jumping of a high building or picking up a venemous snake.
Face your irrational fears when you do you will find they like paper thin illusions. That they have no substance.
It is the secrecy of transvestites which has hindered understanding.
I have started to find female clothes that actually suit me. Skirts are best because dresses rarely fit right. Aside from height male proportions are different from female as I am sure you know.
I try not to be too flambouyant. I get a sexual thrill from the more sissy side of clothing. But I get a different satisfaction from wearing clothes which I guess aren't too full on. A skirt and t shirt work pretty well the tshirt can be male or female (it's a pretty unisex item of clothing) I am starting to find that anything which does turn me on is not something i want to wear in public. I wouldn't walk around in public looking at a porn mag after all. Also like a porn mag I recognise the difference between sex and crossdressing. It would be great to find someone who wanted to act out my fantasies but that is all they are- fantasies. Sex seems like a different thing entirely to me. But then I have so little experience what do I know? I have had a sexual relationship that lasted about 1 month.
I send everyone reading this love and hope everyone is happy and content with life.
At the festival that I first came out to my friends I decided on three things which I find helpful to remember.
1. We are all basically the same.
2. Know what you want.
3. Do what you want.
Love to all
Alistair Reeder UK
Thought provoking stuff.
I started cross dressing, like many others before being sexually awareness and can only assume that the need to cross-dress is part of my makeup and not generated from a desire driven from experience or external influence.
I do not deny that cross dressing is a very powerful aphrodisiac. The thought of being caught out is, perhaps’ one of the stronger sensual feelings along with knowing that what you are doing is ‘not normal’ followed by all the usual sensory feelings of touch, sound, smell, sight etc associated with delicate clothing. That is, perhaps, the major difficulty our partners have in understanding the our condition. A partner will want to be the centre of your universe, not usurped by frilly underwear and satin dresses. If I am typical of most cross-dressers, I am capable of twin desires - dressing for pleasure, and love of a person
But it is also a ‘normal’ part of my life. I would equate it to the average woman who will rise in the morning, pull on plain old knickers and jeans and trot off to work. If she wanted to feel good and attractive to others, she will apply some make-up and some pretty clothes. When ‘in the mood’ erotic lingerie and pretty clothes will be worn to appeal to her partner and also to make herself feel sensual and wanted.
That is how transvestism is to me.
Why ?? Who knows why we are like we are. For all it’s trials and tribulations it is great fun if you can find someone to share it with. Enjoy the ride. Remember, it has to be fun.
As a side note, I thought I had found the perfect partner, but alas, she could not cope with my cross-dressing which, incidentally, I confined solely to underclothes during the day and additional clothing in the bedroom.
These men flaunt their cross-dressing, they affirm the positive and glamorous aspects of being 'transgendered' and they re-organise their lives and relationships so that cross-dressing can become a primary focus for enjoyment and social interaction.
I believe the reason and importance of doing this is so that one can build a life where their dressing is embraced and it doesnt have to be kept a secret. To be out and open about dressing can be very liberating i imagine. I hope for that one day. For me the secrets are killing me. I see nothing wrong with this.
You might want to look at the HArry Benjamin Scale, which shows the different levels of TG ism - all the way up to transsexuals. I think you may be a cross dresser happy with dressing in private, for some others that is not enough, and for others surgery is necessary. Its different for everyone. Dont get confused or judge people that want to take it further than you do. everyone has the right to make their world comfortable and inhabitable for themselves.
i wrote the above comment and when i say "you" im referring to the original author of the blog.
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