Cross-dressing isn’t all that hard to understand.
Somewhere along the line the word fetish took on a negative connotation.
A fetish is an inanimate object that is felt to have magical or spiritual powers. What is negative about that?
Comments on this board about “not understanding cross-dressing” have made me go back to the basics.
Currently I have several pairs of Levi’s that I love to wear to work in my office. They’re men’s Levi’, but they make me feel special. I have deerskin work gloves that I find not only utilitarian, but I like the way they look and make me look. I wear cross-trainer shoes to work, even though the chances of me breaking out into a 5K are zero.
Each and every article in my male wardrobe has some quality about it that is magical or spiritual. If not, I donate it to Goodwill. Those items of male clothing include my blue blazers, grey slacks, button-down collar dress shirts, and tasseled loafers. It also includes my lightweight work clothes and boots I use for yard work.
Then I have another wardrobe. Each dress, skirt, top. . .including lingerie and sleepwear has a spiritually uplifting mystique to it. Again, if I don’t feel right about a piece of feminine clothing it goes to Goodwill. My feminine wardrobe includes jewelry, make-up, and scent.
Defining what it is about something inanimate that makes it “magical” or “spiritual” defies logic as those are rather ephemeral, ethereal, and gossamer qualities.
I cross-dress because I have a need to experience those magical and spiritual qualities. I wear a male wardrobe that has similar uplifting aspects. Society is wrong in judging me cruelly based on something that they do every day as well. Is my desire to wear a dress anything different than another man’s desire to wear a pin-striped suit? . . .they’re both a fetish.
I’m not oblivious to the strength of the taboo and its sexual aspects. My story The Chelsea Drugstore explores this aspect of cross-dressing. However, it would be wrong to generalize all cross-dressers as non-conformist, attention seekers who are getting off on defying society.
Over the course of a year I will spend half my time in one wardrobe and half in the other. I’m just as sane in my jeans and Twins’ jersey as I am in my sage, plaid, seersucker, summer-weight dress.
Jill
Comments
Thank you Jill.
I'm thinking that the not understanding the crossdressing thing is related to the teenage drag queen discussion? I won't go into that except to say that I can sorta understand it. Yes, it is very over the top, but I see it as a kind of manic money-diving immersion into femininity very similar to the big breasts thing so many of us have. It's possible the kid is as much attracted to the symbols that drag queens represent as their reputation. Also give his family, he probably doesn't have a very good idea of just what he really wants. Ie, he's a boy who loves women's clothing. Drag Queens are men who wear women clothing. So he must be one of them right? As he learns more about himself he might very well adjust as he comes to terms with what he really wants. After all for the longest time I doubted my own sexuality because of the call of the feminine. I want to be a girl, and girls likes boys, so I must like boys too? Err.... no. Logic does fail sometimes particularly without all the information you need to make a good decision.
As for clothing, I think you have it right. Even more I think you have a very sane way of going about it more so than mine. I rarely like my male wardrobe so I simply make it as practical and comfortable as possible. Your method is superior for dealing with the madness! :)
Hugs
Grover
PS Thanks again Jill!
A Very Healthy View To Take
When I have talked to many of my friends and relatives about my eventual transitioning, it has evolved into a discussion about the difference between a crossdresser and a transsexual. It has confused many of them when I've openly stated that I'll probably not change the way I dress when I've transitioned, and then surprised them to learn that even as a guy many pieces of my wardrobe are women's clothing whether they realize it or not. For me it's not about the clothes, or how they make me feel or look, but about who I am that matters. In a way, it's quite similar to your description of your own feelings above -- my body is something sacred to me, and it is important that I have a body I feel comfortable in and proud to wear.
Your view of things is a wonderfully healthy way to look at it, and your description is one that I think could probably help to reach many who don't understand what crossdressing is, even outside our small community here.
Melanie E.
Arrogance
I've always assumed transsexuals feel the same way about their bodies as I do about clothes. I've always also assumed that my assumptions were arrogant as we really can't know what another person is thinking or feeling.
I know that when I put on a certain piece of clothing it feels right. Other clothes feel wrong. The majority of what feels right to me seems to be feminine. (And, there are many, many dresses that just aren't me. I'm rather particular in what I buy and wear.)
For me it is that simple. Others might feel entirely different and I assume they do. ; )
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Fetish?
I don't understand why you should need to understand.
Danny LaRue did the drag queen thing for years, as did Barry Humphreys (Dame Edna Everage) and Paul O'Grady (Lily Savage). Even Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett regularly dressed as women in their shows.
What's to understand?
It's entertainment, pure and simple.
I don't just look it, I'm unbelievably gorgeous
Re: Fetish
Hello Nick,
I certainly wouldn't class the two Ronnies as drag queens, their cross-dressing was a very small part of what they did, whereas with drag queens, that is, generally, the only thing that they do. I'm not even sure I would class Barry Humphries as one either, because he also did Sir Les Patterson, as well as appearing as himself.
Regards,
Dave.
My cousin's partner...
My cousin's partner is MUCH more comfortable in her pin-stripe suits, bow ties and leather shoes than she could be in a skirt or dress. Come to think of it, I can't recall a time (or photo) where I've seen her in anything that most would say is remotely feminine.
It's a double standard in our society. Women CAN wear "men's" clothing with little or no negative outcome. But, most men cannot wear "women's" clothing without significant issues. Yes, that "modern" use of the "fetish" word comes out. Sad, isn't it.
Enjoy your life and wardrobe.
Anne
Yes but there is a difference
She is not binding her breasts or stuffing a falsie down her trousers or wearing a beard is she?
The nearest equivalent would be for a guy to just wear female clothing without the big falsies and not gaffing their junk. And not shaving anything.
There is a difference.
Kim
What, you mean like ...
... Eddie Izzard?
He does nothing to disguise his masculinity, is often bearded and yet is frequently seen in women's clothes.
I don't just look it, I'm phenomenally gorgeous
He pulls it off though,
And quite well, in fact.
That's probably as much his attitude as anything else, though, and the fact that even making it so obvious he usually picks items of clothing that work well on him.
This is based on what I've seen, though. Doubtless now someone will post a picture of him in some garish outfit that looks horrible.
Melanie E.
Great post
While I can't really know how you feel ( never was a cross-dresser )I can try to understand it.
I think that a lot of the times Cross-dressers are looked down upon in the TG society and unjustifiably so . How hard is it to understand that someone enjoy certain clothes/ stuff and wear/does them irregardless of gender? I like dresses so why wouldn't some man would ?
And even if they are the sexual aspect and taboo ones: whats wrong in that? Every human being is allowed to have sexual kinks and it shouldn't change our opinion of someone.
Good luck and my everlasting support.
Lily.
P.S
Angela : you just outed yourself as a a cross wearer as you wear cross-trainers ;)
It's a mug's game
I think the problem here is this illusion that there is only so much normalness to go around. The quest for validity in Society's eyes is like a game of musical chairs played over an abyss of ostracism- and we're all grabbing for that available seat. Society deigns to define us in unflattering terms, we're all this, all that, and so we attempt to convince them (and ourselves) otherwise. Rationalizing why we're NOT whatever kinda pathology they paint us as, why they should see us as normal. And the best way to do that is to compare ourselves to others- At least I'm not one of THOSE. And “Look over there, there's your real perverts.â€
Can't be seen talking that the bearded guy in the rubber nun suit, people might think I'm like that! Catty remarks about the unpassable, the clownish, the embarrasment we feel because “they make us look badâ€; Which they really only do if we agree to play society's game of bad outcasts and worse ones. And so we become the bigots' capos, doing their ugly job for them, complicit in our oppression. I don't know that it's a deliberate “Divide and Conquer†strategy, I'm not sure they're that clever. But it sure has that effect...
~hugs, Ronni
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
And all the while....
...some of us get stupidly roped into the "At least I'm not like them String Quartet," playing soothing violin music to help us forget at least in part why we write our stories.
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Thank you, Jill. Very well
Thank you, Jill. Very well expressed.
We all seek something in our lives, to live in a way that feels "right" to us.
In an ideal society, which doesn't exist, and probably never will, everyone would be free (both legally, and in terms of social acceptance) to seek, find, and live the way that is their own right way. In gender terms, we would be free to be feminine, masculine, or anyplace in-between, and to move about on that spectrum as we saw fit.
Kris
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
crossdressing
for a long time, my only exposure to men who dressed up as women was through crossdressing magazines, so I assumed I was like them. It took me a long time to acknowledge the truth, that I like female clothing because I feel more like the real me, the female self I tried so hard to deny. Now, I feel like I'm crossdressing when I'm in male clothes, except there isnt any "magical" or "spiritual" feelings attached. I try very hard not to play the "I'm less of an oddball than them" game, because whatever brings you to Big Closet, you should feel the same welcome I've received.
Dorothycolleen
Corset fetish
It was once said that I had a corset fetish, and I must admitt to it. Of course in those days, I was <150 and had a natural 28 inch waist, so a little corseting got me down to the range of HOT!
Somewhere along the line, they put me on mind altering, body ruining drugs and am now fighting to stay below 180. The drugs are gone, but the battle seems a lost cause. And I've found that I can't corset at all because of GIRD or an injury to my diaphram that allows acit to come up my throat. So at the ripe old age of 64, my days of HOT are perhaps departed forever.
Having recently abandoned Islam, I no longer go to the store under a tent, yet there are times when I still want the security of it. I think we all should be able to express ourselves in the way we wish to.
Much peace
Gwendolyn
Practicalities
Although I would love to wear women's clothes full time I can't, for practical reasons. But, for other practical reasons, a lot of what I wear, in either mode, is female clothing anyway.
My pelvis is a shape which is not normal for a male. It's not entirely female either, but somewhere in between. What this means is that I can't get trousers (pants) to fit properly. (I have a 32" waist and 40" hip.) Because of the pelvic shape I have to buy larger waist sizes in order to be able to sit down properly - or at all. Jeans - definitely from the female side. Skirts fit me much better than trousers do, although I don't quite have the proper hip shape to carry some styles off well.
I haven't worn male underwear for 25 years, I go for the basic (women's) Sloggi maxi briefs. I've tried many, many different men's undies over the years, all have been extremely uncomfortable.
Because of my Fibromyalgia, my skin is extremely sensitive. Half the male shirts I own I can't wear unless I have a long-sleeved t-shirt under them, which means winter-only. I buy those t-shirts from the women's range at Primark. Much of the women's wear I have is so very much softer than the male clothing, it's just so much more comfortable and more importantly, it fits.
So, sometimes it's just the sheer practicalities of the thing, although I guess if I had been a regular male I would never have considered buying from those other shelves and racks. Fetish? Probably, back in the paleolithic when I was just starting out, but not any longer.
Penny