I find it interesting...

[Kandis]

I actually sat here and read every single thread on the "My Beginnings" forum and I am mostly amazed at the number of us that started based on "an overwhelming desire" to put on a pair of mom or sisters panties. Do any of you think it may be that we had (as most boys), such a bond between ourselves and our mothers or could there be some other cause for that desire to be there?

My personal situation was somewhat differant as there was an event earlier in life that was my first actual exerience of wearing panties, but the desire that came over me later when I found my sisters bra, panties, pantyhose and slip in the laundry hamper was one I could not explain, nor ignore.

[Absaroka]

Sexual attraction in normal young boys to their mothers and sisters is considered a given by just about all psychiatric and psychological developement theories. And the sexual connotations of underwear are obvious.

I noticed this when my daughters were about 8. If we were doing laundry and any of the neighborhood boys were at our house playing, they reacted terribly strongly to the mere sight of my wifes lingerie in the laundry basket, and if I was folding it and putting it away they seemed to think they were watching pornography. I think this is pretty normal in boys of that age. Which leads me to ask the question: why aren't all heterosexual men occaisional crossdressers?

Absraoka

[Kandis]

Which leads me to ask the question: why aren't all heterosexual men occaisional crossdressers?

Absraoka

Excellent question you prose there. It would stand that if a man, who was of course at one time a boy, had those feelings toward his mother as a boy, then why would they not carry over to adulthood. This could most likely be answered with the concept of puberty. When the male body releases more testosterone and his interests are channeled to other things that are not "home related", he is more likely going to focus on those and his desires will go from his mother to the teenage girls he is now noticing more and more. This is mainly because these girls have the same "equipment" and characteristics he once adored in his mother and now, there is someone he can explore those feelings with more intimately without fear or embarassment he might have suffered if he tried talking to his mother about it. I know that while I was at that age, I did not want to discuss my feelings or desires with my Mother, although a few years later I wanted to show her I liked dressing in her things, and hoped as many others that she was accepting and would buy me my own lingerie. (This of course did not happen and I moved back with my birth father and step-mother (whom I affectionately call "Mom" to this day as she was and is much more accepting and understanding).

[Amelie-Laveau]

why aren't all heterosexual men occaisional crossdressers?


Good question Absaroka,, now I have an even tougher question that I have yet to find an answer to. Why do some gay guys crossdress? Why do I, who never wore moms, sis's clothes, never liked girls sexually, but still have this desire to dress as a woman?

I am kinda wrong,, I do sort of have an answer to my question,, I am a woman, that is why i want to look like a woman. But still,, it does go a bit against the grain when a gay guy dresses up as a woman,, the mom theory's kinda get mixed up. Lol.. like me,, I'm kinda mixed up. lol

[Kandis]

Amelie-Laveau,

It is possible that the gay men you refer to who are crossdressers, are more of the femme variety and not the butch. It is possible that the desire to crossdress adds to that femme personna being projected to other gay men isn't it?

I mean, if I get dressed up all pretty like and go to a gay bar, or am not dressed as Kandis, does that make me gay? No, it says I am comfortable around them and hope that I won't have to deal with the ridicule that might happen at a heterosexual place.

[DonnaT]

I didn't try my Mom's panties until a several years after I started CDing. And only then after I found pair that went with a yellow babydoll nighty stuffed in the back of a drawer.

[Kandis]

Oh, I miss those babydoll nighties from that era. My 'sister' had a couple of sets I used to LOVE wearing when I was sneaking through her things. I recently purchased a set on ebay and I LOVE it, well.. I'm not that crazy about the color, but I don't know too many people that like a bright yellow I wish I had found it in PINK or even.. Dare I wish... PURPLE.

[Anita]

Absaroka wrote:

Which leads me to ask the question: why aren't all heterosexual men occaisional crossdressers?

Kandis wrote:

This is mainly because these girls have the same "equipment" and characteristics he once adored in his mother and now, there is someone he can explore those feelings with more intimately without fear or embarassment he might have suffered if he tried talking to his mother about it.

Ah, but that is the awkwardness of being 12 or 13. I was certainly noticing the girls around me, but there was no easy channel for exploring those feelings. I couldn't talk about the feelings with the girls; I couldn't date them, since we lived in a town with no restaurants, cafes, etc, and I couldn't drive. So those clothes of Mom and/or sis were still one of the ways to express all of this. As I got older and did actually date, the need receded, but the seeds had already been planted.

I think that many more boys try this than ever talk about it. For whatever reason, it doesn't "take" with them, is all. It didn't stay with me; I went on to have many years without crossdressing. But it's rare that that happens, at least among those of us who are here on this forum.

I know I never talked about it, and yet my friends and I had frank discussions about other topics that would seem to be just as troublesome.
But as we all know, this is the darkest secret any of us ever held onto.

[Stephanie W]

Kandis said:

When the male body releases more testosterone and his interests are channeled to other things that are not "home related", he is more likely going to focus on those and his desires will go from his mother to the teenage girls he is now noticing more and more. This is mainly because these girls have the same "equipment" and characteristics he once adored in his mother and now,

While that may be true for many, I would have to disagree with you, because personally speaking, I have never recalled being fixated on my mother's "equipment" as you so eloquently put it. In spite of any psychiatric or psychological theories, I simply cannot remember experiencing any sexual attraction to my mother . Hey maybe I wasn't normal?

For me, I certainly admired and looked up to her as a role model, especially as she was struggling to bring me up without my father around. I know she did the best she could and I'll always love her dearly for that. Even though we could talk about most things, back then, I was too ashamed to be able to confide in her about my cding. If there was any fixation at all relating to her, it was confined to her pretty clothes and what it felt like to wear them. Sure, I was aware that her physical attrubutes were different than mine, but it was only as I got older and begun to discover girls as a hormone-laced teenager, that those female attributes took on a whole new meaning for me. As a crossdresser too, it was the incredible 'package', although not-so-strangely enough, the clothes were always secondary to my sexual attraction for the cute girl who was wearing them.

Stephanie

[Caith]

My personal take on it is pretty much the same now as it was almost 50 years ago - boys have the ugliest damned cotton underwear I've ever seen. Even printed boxers are drab/boring in my perspective. Why couldn't we have and wear something soft and pretty?

[CJ]

Hi all,

Stephanie wrote: In spite of any psychiatric or psychological theories, I simply cannot remember experiencing any sexual attraction to my mother.

Aye, and there's the rub, lass. Any good Freudian will tell you that these things aren't to be found in the realm of memory but, rather, in the realm of unconscious desires. Unconscious means not fully manifest in awareness. Thus--would say our Freudian--you were attracted to your mother but could not even admit the fact to yourself (ostensibly because of the incest taboo). This would make crossdressing out to be a residual mechanism that operates in our conscious lives in order to safeguard our unconscious sexual attraction (or, at the very least, our emotional bonding) to our mothers in a way that bypasses the incest taboo. Some theorists have said as much, too.

Of course, for many, Freud was a sexually repressed Victorian drug addict, so whatever he had to say about sexuality can be seen as garbage flowing from a diseased mind. Genius or quack? Take your pick.

My own thinking on the matter is actually quite simple. Beyond the fog of "transgender gene" research and studies, there's the matter of simple bonding and socialization. Although there are exceptions (as there will inevitably be if and when a "TG gene" is ever discovered), boys who, throughout their early childhood, are emotionally and physically much closer to their mothers (or, really, to any significant female presence in their lives) than to their fathers (or significant male figures) and who are socialized to value (and I mean value, not just reluctantly accept) traditionally feminine occupations and characteristics (for example, helping with household chores--which was my own case--or, say, being encouraged to eschew boisterousness in favour of a more demure temperament or, again, to provide emotional support and care for siblings) are far likelier to exhibit some form of transgendered behaviour than those boys not brought up under such conditions.

But, hey! That's just me. The greater part of my own thoughts on this issue stems from my own experience first, and from my reading of the literature, second. And, yes, that would include literature steeped in the soon-to-be-obsolete "bio-medical" model.

Simone De Beauvoir once said that, "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." I think the same holds true of men. And the same holds true of crossdressers and transsexuals. Some may not subscribe to this view and, of course, that's perfectly fine. But they would do well to pay attention to the process of socialization. This process is extremely influential, partly (and precisely) because it usually operates on a subconscious level. The flood of belly-exposing 12 year old girls we witnessed after the initial rise of Shakira is but one example of this. When hypersexualization becomes a mark of a deeply desired "womanly girlhood," you can bet your bippy that many girls will associate womanhood with hypersexualization--without even ever thinking about it (of course, the parents of these girls are very vocal in their own thinking about this! ).

What is more normal for a boy (oh! the irony!) who orbits the safe, caring, warm, sensual, and life-giving star that is his mother (or aunt, or step-mother, or older sister, or what have you) than to set her up as an ideal, as a model for his own course in life? Especially if there's an emotionally or physically absent father (or other male figure) in the picture? And this "will-to-trans" is doubly powerful--despite Fictionmania-like fantasies--when the mother (or aunt, etc.) has no real insight into the effect her own behaviour has on her young and impressionable male charge. When, as a boy, I used to sit on the edge of my mother's bed and watch her (while fondling the clothes she'd laid out on the bed for herself) as she got ready to go to work--doing her hair, applying makeup, getting dressed, etc.--I was a total innocent. And so was she. I'm sure she had no inkling that any kind of gender boundaries were being violated in any way. Even after her own mother (who lived with us for a spell) suggested to her that "it isn't normal" for a little boy to be spending hours brushing his mother's hair while she sat in her underwear only, my mother still refused to see that anything out of the ordinary was happening here. And I reiterate: she, just like myself, was an innocent in all this. (My mother has not a mean bone in her body; in fact, all her bones are loving and compassionate.) Nevertheless, here we witness the birth of a transgendered individual. Those that feel it's politically incorrect to point fingers at a child's parents or other emotionally significant guardians (after all, there ain't no instruction manual, right?) are free to go gene-hunting if they so wish. The outcome of these etiological debates will never change the fact that our most pressing concern, as crossdressers or transsexuals, is--given that this is who we are--how do we deal, here and now, with who we are? This trumps everything else. Because failure to do so leads to death--affective or otherwise.

Great thread, Kandis. Thanks!

Love,
CJ

[Absaroka]

I can pretty much remember being innocently sexually attracted to both my mother and sister. And then as do most normal heterosexual boys, I made the transition to being attracted to girls my own age along with sexy older women.

As for Freud, although many of his theories are questioned in terms of they were formed from treated repressed middle class Victorian women, his basic ideas of a powerful unconscious and the role of the family in socialization are pretty well accepted in psychological theory. A good example is the dissociative personality disorder (mulitple personality) It is a response to highly intolerable conflict and stress in children. In American society it is usually brought about by sexual abuse as a child. But in war torn countries the most common cause of it has nothing to do with sex. It's usually a response to seeing one's family killed. That doesn't happen here much because we are relatively free of internal strife. Freudians would say that it was the sex that caused it but current thinking is that it's really the stress that causes it and that the sexual abuse is one possible form of the stress.

As Amelie Laveau asked, why do gay men cross dress? In her case from what she has said, it may have something to do with an inner feminimity. I don't know. Amelie, you'llhave to answer the question of why you crossdress yourself. A lot of what I write about motives has to do with looking within and thus is mostly applicable to me. However it has seemed to me that a lot of cross dressers consider homosexual drag queens to be a breed apart with different motives for their attire then either the fetishist or the transgendered person.

I don't consider crossdressing or being transgendered a disease but I will use that analogy here. If your nose is running there are a number of related but different possible causes. One could be that you are sick. Another could be allergies. A third could be that it's cold out. Trying to find one reason for all of these situations is doomed to failure even though there are commonalities of the bodies response.

Absaroka

[DonnaT]

The problem I have with the bonding and socialization theory is, why does it occur in so few boys? Why is it when a boy is raised as a girl and yet feels he should have been a boy? Why do girls, raised girly, feel they should be boys?

I consider it to be closer to a condition of being Intersexed, based on hormones and a genetic reaction to them, or just to some genetic condition with no regard to hormones.

[Carolynn]

As a person born intersexed, I agree with Donna. Had the basis been in socialization at an early age, I should have been a male in my mind and in body, and I was neither. I was given a male physio/social identity by a doctor following standard medical practice at the time, doing what they could to assign a gender on the basis of best guess or what physical equipement you might express seemed to tend toward.

On the basis of an informal survey on an Intersex site, it seems assignment by a doctor were correct (the person said they were satisfied, more or less) about 60 % of the time if they assigned an individual as female, and were correct about 40% of the time if they assigned the individual as male. Just barely over the point of breaking even and just below is not evidence of a good medical practice, IMHO, and I hope it continues to be changed.

And as Donna alluded to, the twin "experiment" of David Reimer by John Money does seem to me to demonstrate good evidence for a sense of gender to be inborn, and I think also the gender confusion or gender dysphoria, perhaps from the suggested hormonal timing imbalances. It is only one data point, but to conduct another such experiment would be just plain wrong, as the first one was. Other studies of a few twins, one of whom is TS and one is apparently not, actually suggest prenatal influences as well.

I know I am the result of genetic defects, and other external chemicals later introduced into my body. There are other "birth defects'" that come from hormonal imbalances and timing of hormonal triggers in the foetal brain and from mothers body, and from chemicals from outside mothers body (remember Thalidamide, and DES). Some failures of such triggers can result in cleft pallete, webbed toes and fingers, "tails" and other minor and more extensive anomolies that need surgical correction. The results of these have an observable effect, but be birth defects in the sense that they affect a foetus so that the individual is not "normal" at birth. If the external physical body can be so affected, what about the possibilites of effects on the brain that are not visible to casual observation?

Recently, some doctors have suggested that the earlier onset of menses in some pre-adolescent girls is actually the result of hormone use by the dairy industry to produce greater quantities of milk, and these find their way into the water supply through run-off and maybe in milk as well. So it could be that we are also affected post-birth by things we have not ever considered.

Basically, I think there could be multiple routes for what we see as a homogenous outcome of transgender or gender variant, and there may not be any one easily definable reason for GD except in individual, well studied cases.

Just my 2 cents worth .

Love, Carolynn

[Stephanie W]

Stephanie wrote: In spite of any psychiatric or psychological theories, I simply cannot remember experiencing any sexual attraction to my mother.

CJ wrote:

Aye, and there's the rub, lass. Any good Freudian will tell you that these things aren't to be found in the realm of memory but, rather, in the realm of unconscious desires. Unconscious means not fully manifest in awareness. Thus--would say our Freudian--you were attracted to your mother but could not even admit the fact to yourself (ostensibly because of the incest taboo).

Well, finding myself in the midst of a debate among some of our most well read members on the subject of gender, I'd be here all day trying to articulate my own feelings or beliefs with any semblance of intelligent literary acumen or knowledge. Suffice to say that my early memories, as stated, were indeed devoid of recollection, pure and simple. Not because I'm in any kind of incestuous denial, thank you Mr Freud, but simply because l don't remember any physical attraction. (I know my childhood memory wasn't that bad either, because I do remember playing with my GI Joes, (wot no Barbies?) as well as many other wonderful and not so wonderful childhood memories). However, if numerous psychiatric studies point to the contrary, then who am I to argue? Eliminating a poor memory or blatant denial as reasons for not being able to recollect, leaves only the possibility that those memories must indeed be buried in my unconscious desires. Hey, I can live with that and I remain perpetually open to being educated further.

I do agree that not having a fatherly presence around, does by default, exert considerably more unrealized influence from a mother to her child, so it is reasonable to assume this will have a geater impact upon us in shaping our TG-ness, so to speak. In fact, I have always believed this to be so. I think truly valuing those traditional feminine occupations and characteristics comes from within and is not something we need to 'reluctantly accept'. We may feign reluctance in order to deal with the influence of a strong male relative or our peers, but I personally was never comfortable pretending to be someone I wasn't. Perhaps subconsciously, those GI Joes were my way of 'conforming', who knows? Whether valuing those feminine characteristics ultimately contributed to my transgendered nature...probably. Was it the sole cause...no, because I believe strongly in the genetic influence as well as the nurturing one. Thanks for the enlightenment though.

Stephanie