Hello everyone!
A fine thread going here. I'll make comments on what people have said in a minute. Editorial first...
In my time performing as a woman, I've seen over and over that straight men are attracted to us. In a stage setting, it's OK to like an attractive T-girl. As a heterosexual guy most of my life, who better knows what men like about women? I know how to present the package.
So just what
is it that they like here? I've always said that the DNA kicks in, and if our eyes see a woman, we react to her. It's hard-wired, and we don't stop to go, "but...but...she's not really...I mean..." It just happens to us, and we have to figure it out later. RuPaul made a lot of straight guys wonder just what this is all about.
If you go see a local production of "Hamlet," you don't keep telling yourself that the lead actor is just an accountant from downtown. You let the illusion unfold, and you want to help it work. That guy IS Hamlet for you, as long as he's staying in character.
I haven't learned how to put quotes in these answers. So...
Rebecca said seeing that the package caused the attraction (rather than the person) freed her up with women--they couldn't "intimidate me with an assault of lewd behaviour." I found this, too. Also, knowing that I could now create that package myself freed me up, too. Women weren't my only source of attractiveness and femaleness any more. I had my own version, and like any self-reliance (learning to fix your own car, for instance) it gave me a feeling of power that I had never had before.
CJ--"Her demeanour was a heady mixture of self-assurance and aloofness. I felt...like she could...teach me some things."
To me, everyone is an combination of energies. Maybe it's all the drugs I did, but male and female "feeling," or energy, is not dependent on the "container" that the energy is flowing into. Sorry to get so vague and new-agey here, but there's no better word at present than energy. It's the vibration I see in the eyes of another.
I run into "beings" that have a complex blend of some really intense male and female energies, and I get fascinated by them. So it sounds like your new neighbor has one of those blends. If she's presenting as a female, it's hard not to take that as the "container" for what you're seeing. It sneaks past that DNA filter!
Sophie--"you will only know the answer...if you actually come face to face with a sexy girl, who you found attractive but then found out was really a boy."
I'm afraid that what you'll usually get in those situations is anger, Sophie.
Even if the "deception" only went on for ten minutes, it's enough to upset some people. I don't think even our CD understanding of all this would keep us from being upset if we felt like we'd been led on. That's how emotional it is. [Rebecca talked of this, in another post...'If we are trying to come to terms with our social programming...imagine the confusion of someone totally unprepared.']
Elizabeth--"Maybe what we're talking about is being loved and accepted. There is no denying that there comes an understanding with a sister [CD] that just does not exist anywhere else...I don't think we are talking about sexual attraction here."
I'd agree that there's no one who understands this as well as the ones who feel those same feelings. It's easy to get caught up in the CD public circuit, or even get caught up on a forum like this, because there's a connection here--we KNOW.
I can feel a strong attraction to another CD, but it doesn't feel appropriate to act on that. It may happen someday, but it feels too much like "family." There's also a certain vulnerability and trust that I find in many CDs, and I don't want to disturb that.
Deborah and Elizabeth both said that they like what they see in the mirror, and are attracted to their images. I'm attracted to my best Anita appearance, too, and I find that fuels my wanting to present that image to men who I know will appreciate it. I live out my own attraction through them. I have no idea whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Like many parts of CD life, I go where my instincts take me.
Darlene mentioned being upset because she was repulsed by a too-male picture of an attractive girl on this forum. This made me think. I know transsexual women who are biologically women now, and yet their male traits can get in the way of any attraction. It's kind of the reverse of the CD who's got a very appealing female act down, but ultimately is still a man. The packaging may be superficial, but it affects us very deeply.
Kersten talks about being afraid to meet anyone outside this forum. I'm not sure of all that goes into that. Is it that the male reality will not live up to the idealized female we tend to present here? I find myself blending my Anita voice into everyday use just for that reason--I no longer want such a big gap between the two selves. As an older man, I seem to be able to get away with it. So it would not be quite as jarring to hear me on the phone, say.
Curly--"In fact, I am more drawn to women who have a vague resemblance to me, or how I would like to look."
That's more my reason for looking at women myself, now, but it wasn't always so. I'm attracted to Anita-like traits I see, or outfits that would look good on me, too. Very different from my testosterone-driven youth.
Jassmine--"Now, for a confession...I have found myself sexually attracted to other women. Why? I admire beauty in all forms and for me beauty is quite the turn on. Would I act on that attraction, nope."
So you're facing the same thing the rest of us are. Beauty attracts us to CDs, too, but there's a wall we come to, where our appreciation is supposed to stop.
Merinda--"What gives anyone the right to know better than me about my sexuality?"
In our world of CDing, a LOT of people think they can make that assumption about us. It seems to go with the territory, and I hope you're not getting too many doses of it. As many have pointed out, it's the gay drag queens who are the most visible to John and Jane Public. The more married CDs who come out, the better, but those are the ones who often pay a heavier price for doing so.
Amelie--"Now, the strange part of attraction. I like the men, but I'm not attracted to CDs even though they are men."
We're not putting out a male appearance "package," so I'm not surprised at that. We don't act like men, and we don't look like them, either. There's no surface appeal in that.
I have come to appreciate men, and I can now see that I didn't think much of them before. In a strange way, I'm trying to be consistent. I've watched attractive women abuse the power their beauty gave them. I'm determined not to abuse whatever power of attraction I might have now, and yet I don't see myself wanting ongoing relationships with either men or women at this point. So it's tough to know how to behave sometimes.
I'm not sure such a long post is a good idea, but it's done now.
Anita