"I didn't necessarily want to be the animal but I wanted to be the animal shape."
That's a quote about a childhood memory from an interesting article on Furries. Yes, we have chuckled at this before, but swap animal for woman in that comment and you've got most crossdressers!
Here's the article.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2001/03/furries200103
My curiosity was peaked when Katie mentioned biology and I got thinking how other men have equally strong 'habits'. Sure enough, the similiarities are obvious. As a non crossdresser and a female who can only look in from the outside at all this, well damn if your two worlds don't collide. How can it be there are men who feel as strongly about presenting as animals as y'all do as women? What about the other sub cultures we never hear about? Is it because emulating a woman is seen as slightly less weird and more common that people don't connect them? Maybe it's only more common because women are everywhere, but otherwise the stripes really are the same?
We've joked here about Furries and other 'fetish' type groups, but did anyone here know they also have forums where they discuss how hard it is on their marriages, how much they hate living a dual life. There's even a forum like crossdressers.com where they squabble over who has an authentic identity and who is just into kink. Sound familiar?
Have a read. The question then becomes not 'why do men crossdress' and 'how do we stop crossdressing' because clearly men do all kinds of things. The question instead is 'how do we live with this.'
Yeah, I haven't figured that out, yet, either. Can someone please let me know when they do lol. x
Because for some crossdressers it is kinky or fetish. There are loads of different reasons why men crossdress and for some it's not about the clothes. The reference to kink or fetish is often used as that is how we are perceived by the muggles.
Why do people, even crossdressers on this forum, refer to crossdressing as kinky, or fetish. It is just wearing nice clothes. When Sindy put on her husbands robe nothing was thought of it. She wasn't being kinky or fetish. But if her husband put on her lace/silk robe (if you have one Sindy), it would be regarded as weird. It's just a dressing gown, no big deal.
Women have such a great selection of clothing to choose from, men not so much. Some famous people are starting to blur the lines a bit now, especially pop stars. People like David Bowie and Boy George were two of the forerunners in the pop world.
Here is a thought. Women tend to have a closer more intimate relationship with other women than men do with men. They will dress each other, help with makeup, have sleepovers etc. Maybe us crossdressers want to be part of that experience.
I can cope with the crossdressing but if he'd dressed as a baby or an animal id want him off to a Dr.
I can sort of understand the crossdressing and like the term Femophile too as he does adore women and a certain look.
Sindy would you prefer your hubby to dress as an animal or baby? I guess if it affects your intimacy thinking of him dressed as a woman it would really mess up your image of him with a dummy and nappy or a fur coat and antlers lol
Tights and stockings and heels are a main driver for him too Davina
Em
My wife is forever wearing my bathrobe "OMG Shes a Crossdresser"
Tights do something for me be it me slipping them on with some high heels or seeing women in tight and heels especially my wife when she wear them which is far too rare for my liking.
Davina, the trans label is so all encompassing, I fit under it because I sometimes nick my husbands bathrobe lol.
It's always the damn tights!! hahaha
Katie, I don't know why one and not another. Maybe whenever these preferences are 'sealed', they coincide at a certain hormonal moment like you mentioned. There have been tests run on crossdressers (support forum had loads of info like that) and none were different hormonally. Just ordinary guys. So it must be something early on.
Either that or your memory has blanked out the time you wore fishnet stockings with your cape lol!!
Katie I was always Batman or Superman and they wore tights ergo... there you have it
By the way .....I'm still Batman sometimes Batgirl lol
Add S onto LGBT and we're all equal
In fact for me the ST is where I am Straight and Trans if Crossdressing is the almost far left of the Trans spectrum with Transexual the far right waaaay over there ---->
There is a common thread. Start young in all innocence, go through the teens, drops right off and then starts again in middle age!
Maybe all men have a prerequisite to 'fetish' behaviour. It just needs the right trigger. I had cuddly toys but never turned into a furry! So why does one boy go down the crossdressing route and the other the furry route?
I also used to think I was Tarzan, climbing trees in my swimming trunks with a gun holster with knife in it! (No health and safety in those days). I grew out of that so why not the crossdressing? And why does crossdressing come back in middle age?
That's why I sometimes think about the biological side. And when I say biological I mean hormonal as opposed to psychological.
Katie
Bahahaha! Now see, I actually think that's EXACTLY why crossdressers get separated from these other groups. It's because it's seen as less weird to emulate another adult human rather than a monkey or horse, or baby human!
And there will never ever be one answer to this. I truly believe the amount of reasons a boy might start crossdressing are as numerous as the number of men who crossdress. Seriously, your stories are all vaguely similar and yet so different. The only common link is you are men with a need who desire acceptance. In fact, if you dropped the LGBT label and started working with all the other kinksters out there, you'd probably have three quarters of the male population on your team!!
We don't want to stop crossdressing ... we want to work out why we crossdress and some of us have gone past this and now think" because we do so get on with it" as there is no one answer and the reasons for each crossdresser could be represented as percentages in a pie chart (Which I've added onto my blog and may place here at some point.
But we have the strong urge to seek "acceptance, understanding and to assure our wives or girlfriends" that this isn't as weird as they think if they look past "Pervert, gay, transexual, etc"
You can compare Crossdressing to any other fetish or form of "dressing up" in fact please do as the conclusion may be "Oh Thank God he's just a Crossdresser" lol