Sometimes I wonder if the entire world is crazy or if it's just me. For quite some time now I have been staying home unemployed while my wife goes off to work or school. Being unemployed is not the greatest thing in the world, but it has given me a great deal of time to be dressed, and therein lies the source of my bemusement. Tuesday to Thursday I get up after everyone has left, Ricky gets dressed and is alone until shortly before the school bus arrives in the afternoon. I am a solitary dresser, I'm not used to having anyone around when I wear a dress. A while back I joined the local CD club and attended a few meetings until circumstances forced me to drop out, but it's not the norm.
But now Mondays are different. On Monday my wife goes off to school. We rise and get dressed together, and that still seems strange. Not that we haven't done this before, but for 22 years of marriage we have assumed our public gender roles along with our clothing. On recent Mondays we have both assumed the feminine gender and it still seems a bit odd.
We both start out the same, in our skin, and don bra and panties. We both shake and shimmy to fit our breasts into the cups and laugh at this little dance. I can't help but notice my brassiere is about four times larger than the wisp of cloth that is so sexy on her, and my panties could be used as a sail a small wind powered ship without anyone being the wiser. Why do I feel so feminine at these times? As we are approaching old fogyhood we both favor plain cotton panties that allow air circulation at the cost of pretty fabric, and neither of us wears bikinis anymore.
Then the differences start to manifest. I raise my arms and shrug into a slip, she puts on her long underwear. (Remember - we live in the North, not sunny California.) I snap up my garter belt and roll on stockings, she puts on socks. I self consciously select a blouse and skirt, hoping my color and style combinations are acceptable, she dons a shirt and pants. I choose a pair of matching high heels, she puts her feet into sneakers. A quick brush of her short hair, no makeup to apply, and she is ready for the world.
Get the picture? Many of today's women have abandoned the trappings of femininity that masculine designers had decreed for them and opted for practicality. While I have not undressed any women on the street lately to verify this, it seems my wife is not that unusual in her choice of apparel. I must specifically exclude the worlds of high fashion and suit-and-tie corporate business; those types live a fantasy beyond the dreams of any crossdresser. It seems the only people who still wear slips and garters and corsets are crossdressers.
How did this come to be? As we sat down to breakfast this morning my wife commented on our apparel, noting just these incongruities. Struggling to keep breakfast crumbs off my bosom I found I had no answer, but it started me thinking. When we were married she would have been expected to dress much as I was now dressed, and to have long hair and makeup before appearing in public. Could it be that women's perception of what is feminine has changed over the last twenty years while our masculine perceptions have stayed fixed?
Perhaps it is a result of women's liberation, the average woman has learned to trust her own judgment, not some external notion of fashion. Or is it that this frilly, lacy, impractical version of femininity has been reserved for special occasions? When was the last time you saw a GG wearing skirt, stockings and garters outside a blue movie theater? And don't try to convince me you haven't secretly peeked above the knee when the opportunity presented itself - you would know if those were pantyhose or stockings.
It's not that my wife or most of the other women I know never wear skirts or makeup or heels, and even in pants and a T shirt my masculine side has no trouble appreciating their femininity. I guess I'm stuck with the idea of femininity I absorbed from my mother's lingerie drawer and the secret copies of Playboy in my friend's garage. Or perhaps the practical side of clothing doesn't affect me as much because I only wear feminine garb a few hours at a time. But as Ricky I still tend to dress in more traditionally feminine apparel than my wife. 'Tis a strange world we live in.
