As I said in another thread, go see the movie "Kinsey."
All mammals occasionally, and sometimes quite often or even preferentially, adopt sexual roles other than that matching their sexual organs. So it
is normal. It's just not what most do most of the time, whether people or other mammals. We are the only mammals who signify their sexuality with clothing, so clothing becomes part of the sex life of some of us, too.
I don't know if other species have a concept of sexual roles rather than simply of sex. When one of my male cats humps the other male cat, do either of them think or fantasize of themselves as a female cat? I seriously doubt it. My best guess is that they think of it (and I assume they do think, though not in the same way we do) as "fun." Like humans, I've noticed that a few cats and dogs have preferences for the same sex in their partner as themselves. If it
was part of their sex lives to dress in sex-appropriate clothing, they might even cross dress. Who knows?
In the movie Kinsey, as in life, the really important questions about sex between two (or more) people had to do with honesty, loyalty, and responsibility.
- Truthfulness and transparency is essential, especially in committed relationships and whether monogamous or polyamorous.
- If we are not to seriously hurt our partners we must have a prior agreement with them about boundaries and loyalty. (In poly relationships this is referred to as being one's primary partner or who one is primarily committed to - one always asks one's primary before engaging sexually with anyone else, and if they say "no," you simply don't go there. Violating this is the equivalent of divorce.)
- Responsibility is simply being responsible for one's actions according to the moral, ethical, and religious guidelines of everyone involved - not just your own guidelines. (Children are not responsible parties and therefore cannot give consent, though what constitutes childhood varies among cultures and times.)
Always keep in mind that your emotional attachments may not be the same as your partner's. For example, both my wife and I have experience with polygamous relationships, and are quite familiar with the concepts I've outlined above. Yet neither of us feels that at this point in our marriage (two years) that we are emotionally secure enough to gracefully handle the difficulties of balancing and attending to the physical and emotional needs of another partner, our own or each other's. Just as importantly, our lives are quite full now, and the additional scheduling and apportionment of time and attention is more than either of us is willing to deal with, so we remain functionally mono in a poly marriage. It's just easier.
So how you behave is probably more important than the particular kind of behavior you do, or who you do it with. And this applies whether you are simply an occasional cross-dresser, in transition between sexes, anywhere on the trans spectrum, or comfortably established in a sexual and social role not commensurate with one's birth sex.
And as has been said here,
full disclosure to a potential partner is essential for your physical as well as emotional safety.
Now go out and play!
).