Just a question for those who identify as cross-dresser. Do you think there is an element of "forbidden fruit" in your desire to cross-dress? I mean, if society had no more problem with a man in a dress than it does with a girl in pants, would it still have the same appeal? Just wondering.
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Difficult question
Who can explain what really drives us to make the decisions, and live the kinds of lives we do.
There are many similar non CD examples, eg what drives a person to commit a crime, or someone to have an affair?
Certainly most people enjoy a little risk, and taking risks must be part of man's evolution.
My guess is that one must be motivated to want to conduct the act, but the risk of exposure adds to the excitement of the act, whether it be an affair, a crime, or dressing in female clothes.
It's hard not to internalize
It's hard not to internalize society's disapproval, yet your comment seems to imply that people crossdress FOR the disapproval. I don't believe that. Motive and effect are two different things.
This conflict is at the heart of the obsessive behavior demonstrated by some crossdressers, the stolen time, the "snuck" opportunities, the angry, teary "purges." Blaming the crossdresser for being afflicted by society's taboos, is a little, no a lot, like blaming the victim.
While crossdressing is transgressive, and willful transgression can be a part of sexual fetish, it's wrong to assume that's always the motive. However, where it is, even that needs more toleration than it receives. If lingerie does the job of Viagra for some couples, why is it any worse than Viagra?
As for those of us who enjoy living part of our lives in the aesthetic of the opposite sex, you can't make assumptions about why we do or what we get out of it. I suspect there's a wide range of experiences. In my case, I deal as best I can with the conflict between my needs to express myself, and my fear of ridicule/persecution. I've been extraordinarily fortunate to find people and places where I can hang out and be accepted. For me, my only goal is to be there. I especially enjoy chatting with women when I'm crossdressed, strictly as a friend. I have no sexual agenda when I'm out, especially when I'm out at a lesbian bar, where I'm usually careful to advertise that I'm married and not trying to deceive anyone about my gender, that I'm just a guy who likes to dress like this.
It's hard, though. Hard to get out of the house. The fears, the insecurities, the imagined disasters, the projected disapproval can really weigh on your mind, even if in my case, I know better.
___________________
If a picture is worth 1000 words, this is at least part of my story.
I would say that I believe
I would say that I believe that I was predisposed.
Vicky
I don't know about hypotheticals
...for me it's not about wearing so much as identifying myself by wearing women's clothes. My RLT may last a lifetime, you know?
She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Con grande amore e di affetto, Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Hard questions
I can only answer for myself, because I've learned that no matter how much we have in common, the whole TG, and yes the cross-dresser spectrum too, covers a huge amount of different experiences.
The emotion I feel most right after I dress is a serene calmness. At that moment all is right with the world and me. That used to be followed by fear or shame of discovery. I guess I can understand how that fear might be exciting to some, but I've never found it that way. I've since managed to handle that part a little better, but still at some point I run into a mirror. How I look isn't how I WANT to appear. So add embarrassment and that "shame" again to what I'm feeling. Since Southern Comfort I've learned how to deal with that better too. I'll never look as I WANT but I'm not as bad as my so very critical inner voice had whispered for so long.
The last part of this metamorphosis is the going back to 'drab.' Taking it off. Relief that I made it though without getting caught, but with of a sense of heart tightening loss. Again, I've done better at trying to keep that serenity and and sense of rightness with me all though all of this. That holding onto the core of myself that was revealed by all of this and fighting the years old ingrained habit of covering it up.
I'm I where I want to be? Nope! Like many things it's three steps forwards and two steps back sometimes.
Just for the record, I do identify as cross-dresser. I call it having too much Yin in my Yang. I have a very feminine side that demands expression. Cross-dressing is one of the ways I do that. I don't feel trapped in man's body, I simply want and like to look feminine. The most telling fact is at worse I'm neutral about my genitalia. I have no urge to do any surgery, do-it-yourself or otherwise down there. 'Nuff said.
Hugs!
Grover
Often
Taboo can be important, but I expect not essential. A person who lives a life in a position of great authority often sexualises submissive scenarios. Is it essential for his fetish (or anyones fetish) that it has self conscious connotations? Likely it is that self consciousness can be as much apart of the thrill as any other constituent.
I've been thinking about how the sexual feeling works with ideas, or how a fetish may be a helpful byproduct... Familiarty is mundane, neutral, your identity. Novelty is exciting. When immercing in an exciting activity you continuously recreate/recontextualize it. Theoretically, I expect if one lived in a recognised scenario of excitment... utterly emmerced in it continuously, in the case of a fetish, the sexual thrill will eventually be relocated to a scenario completely alien to the "original" fetish. Distinctions of sexual orientation are merely representational and this shows that what is represented shifts, and forces a new representational term. So you can at one time be represented as a straight male with a boob fetish and at another be represented as a bisexual, transgendered female with a cock fetish.
I think I may have veered off a little, hopefully its relivant or at least interesting! :S
Cross dressers
I visualize shrinks circling this thread like vulures waiting for road kill to actually die and get ripe.
Once girls clothes were declared off limits to me, then I'd sneak off and do it anyhow, and then when puberty hit, lavish masturbatory fantasies followed. In a way it was my revenge at being deprived of being who I had been for most of my prepubescent years.
It took til my life was mostly used up to finally get it right again. If I go to hell, it is with the hope that I get to persecute the bastards that said unkind things about us.
Gwen
Forbidden fruit
I doubt it any more than when a woman wears pants. It is just part of who I am. I do wish society was more acceptable instead of just labeling. Lisa K