Different kinds of CDs ?

[Cathy L. Anderson]

Hi Maria,

What are other peoples experince on this ?

In my case, I think CDing began (at around age 5) associated with vaguely sexual feelings. Much later I started to wonder if maybe I really was a girl. But I think that was secondary to the sensual part. That part was like getting lost in ones reflection in a mirror. If you focus your attention on something, then it does feel like "reality"--but that doesn't makei t reality.

Are there different types of CD, or are there a lot of different causes, which affect any given CD in varying proportions. I don't know--but here are some of the reasons I suppose that lead to CDing:

1. desire to feel sexual and quasi-sexual feelings
2. escape from anxiety
3. escape from challenging situations
4. inability to complete the "separation-individuation" process (i.e.,
to fully separate psychologically from 'the big mommy'
5. a way to allow bisexual feelings into consciousness, without believing oneself to be bisexual
6. poor view of onself as a male (low self-esteem, poor male social skills)
7. feminine physical appearence

These are just a few of the many reasons.

[MariaA]

Thank you so much girls !!!! I have learned so much from all of you !!!

[MariaA]

The one thing I observe accross the board in all the comments is the commun feeling of love and ampathy among all. It is also amazing the level of self knowledge that many of you seem to have gotten as a result of this experiences. I am impressed !! This is a great school for us new girls !

[Gelinda]

Ladies:

This thread made me think a long time before answering and last Friday, I talked to my Therpyist about my why's again in much more detail that before. Had a lot bigger issues to handle first.

The main reason is avoidance of realty for me so shes says. To explain, when I am crossdressing I can avoid being me and thinking in this world, I have made for myself and my family.

I think alot of people on this forum, have most likely seen my differing moods. I am not a split personality mind you but I like to get out of my mind and away from the past at times. I have two main ways of doing this: 1. Drinking until I am overly drunk and pass out. AND 2. I crossdress and hide from myself and the world. There is a third but it is fishing. When I am on the lake the world stops except for me an getting that fish to bite.

I will do almost do anything to get away from my past and the dreams that are there.

Well you sort of asked. Gelinda

[Valerie]

Hi girls,

Darlene wrote:

Also I want to point out that with the kind of administration you are now providing, it sets the scene or in other words provides the environment for one to be open. And that in my opinion; this is becoming one of the healthier cross-dressing sites to be found on the web.

Love always,
Elizabeth

. Just what I have been thinking since I have been coming here,

As for the why CD, I find it just feels good to be dressed as such. When I see a female, I not only look her over ( sorry but I'm still a male ) but also take in what she is wearing and wishing I could try that outfit/dress on too.
Just yesterday I saw 2 different women that I loved their outfits. One was in a white pants suit and the other had an ivory dress with brown stems that had dark yellow and purple flowers on it.The dress was the type that is thin and flowing. My those outfits were gorgeous,

[Virginia]

Gee,
Thanks for posting - I for one think it is great that you share with us like this. I can remember some of your earlier posts where you were basically saying you did not have clue what was going on with you, but look at you now!!!! You are formulaitng answers, right or wrong, they are answers and at least give you some satisfaction in that you can now explore where you are, where you came from and where you may be going. You are at least to the place that Yogi Berra described. "I came to a fork in the road - so I took it!" I, for one, think you are making great strides. You may be too close to the situation to see it, but your posts reflect, at least to me, a lot of very positive changes.
My only advice right now is "DamnIt! STOP THE DRINKING AND GO FISHING -even if it is dressed in a skirt and heels!!
Keep the faith - we all love you!
Virginia

[Virginia]

You'll note that a lot of our sisters here have various reasons for dressing. What they do when dressed varies widely and how they feel when they have to hang up that part of their lives. Very few of us are indentical in our feelings toward this gift. How we may use it or express it to ourselves and to others vary widely, but just accepting the fact that we do indeed have something special is a big step. Where one goes from there is up to them.
Virginia

[Shenica]

This has turned out to be a very significant thread for me.
First, thanks to MariA for starting it and having the courage to state what it is for her.

I have been in a number of on line crossdressing discussion groups, and it seems almost universal that those in the 'establishment' are into full time dressing, 'passing' and such things. Anyone who mentions the sexual aspect is, depending on the courtesy of the group, shunned, ignored or ridiculed. It is wonderful to feel the acceptance here, particularly Virginia's comment ( 'scuse the poor quote) " I don't understand it but I accept you"

Similarly, I do not experience the need or desire to interact with the world fully dressed. I can't therefore claim to understand that, but again, I accept that it is a significant part of the being for a number of the members here.

Thank you MariA Sallee, Dawn Darlene. I feel like you will understand me, as what you have expressed is very much what I feel. I have to actually type it here, as part of admitting it to myself and affirming myself. Cross dressing is a sexual thing for me. I posted quite a bit about that in the 'sexuality' poll earlier today.

There is the bad along with the good. My wife and I have discussed the issue many times, and she is not comfortable with my dressing. She has expressed it a few different ways
- you are in love with the clothing, not with me.
- you are in love with a dream girl that you dress up to become, that I will never be
- if the clothing turns you on then you don't need me.
- if you need the clothing to get turned on then I am not good enough for you.
She is of the 'or' school, where you can be 'in love' with her or something else.
I am of the 'and' school, where I can be 'in love' with her and something else.
The temporary solution to this stand off is 'don't ask don't tell'. Of course it is much more complicated than that, and I must add in her significant medical issues.

I am totally heterosexual, totally male, totally monogamous. I just really like womens' clothing. That is probably why I have not gone for the wig and makeup.

According to some popular psychology of the 70's (now there is a topic I could really expand on) the crossdressing male is using the female clothing to get aroused and sexually active, therefore becoming more masculine, more complete, more powerful. Something about seeing the real power in the female (mother) figure.

I have never felt a different identity when dressed. I am still the same (male) person, dressed, thinking about dressing, or doing normal male/father/grandfather/family things. I had a lot of difficulty deciding to use a female name. I felt I should be posting here using my real name, but I believe I would have too many new complications in my life if I did. Any other name poses an honesty issue, but I am not trying to 'personate' (see below) anyone, and it is acceptable and normal here to use a female name, so I am 'at peace' with that. Now, I kind of like the female name.
Moving out of my comfort zone a bit more....

<A policeman friend made this distinction - impersonation is trying to take a specific individual's identity, personation is trying to present yourself as someone you are not, but not another specific person. >

I don't about anyone else, but these posts take me ages to consider and type out. I have been at this over an hour, so I have to stop now. Does anyone else find it takes a long time to get their thoughts out?

shenica

[Beauty]

Hi Shenica,

Yes, my average post that's a few paragraphs averages about an hour.

This one took a few minutes.

Beauty

[CJ]

Hi all,

Shenica,

Same here; what only takes a few minutes for all of you to read may very well have taken me an hour or two to write. So you're definitely not alone there.

I want to pick up on what you said about the 70's psychology. I started reading (actually, devouring) anything that had to do with CD'ing when I was about 13 or 14 years old (so this takes me back to the mid-70's) and I often came into contact with the works of psychologists and other assorted professionals who concerned themselves with transgender issues... Benjamin, Green, Money, Stoller, etc., etc.

Robert Stoller, in particular, left an impression. Although he was much more of a Freudian that I'll ever be, his theories were often thought-provoking. It was his contention that men who feel the need to assume the identity of women do so out of a deep need to relieve themselves of a castration anxiety. In essence, they were, in the very act of dressing like a woman (the mother figure, according to Stoller), "negating" the scary possibility often entertained by little boys that their mother, God forbid! did not, herself, have a penis (a realization, when it finally dawns on a boy, that he, himself, might one day lose his penis). In other words, by dressing as women, and by seeing our image reflected back to ourselves, we triumphantly declare--if only subconsciously--that our mother did, indeed, have a penis. We become phallic women in the same way that our deepest mind insists that our mother was. Of course, Stoller also understood that there's more than one way for a woman to be phallic; a domineering and authoritarian (read: male) mother could do the trick just as well.

The problem I have with this kind of thinking is that it's slightly misogynistic and altogether too Freudian ("Freudian," to me, is synonymous with "preoccupied with the mighty penis"--a legacy of the Victorian era). Although Stoller does include "the absent father" (emotionally or otherwise) in the equation that can lead a little boy to want to be a girl, along with a "too-present" mother, I cannot help but feel that this makes the mother the "bad guy" in all this. That doesn't wash with me (and it took me years to convince my own mother of this). I think the truth is much simpler; for whatever reasons--biological, psychological, social, or otherwise--there is more that can go "wrong" with a boy's psychosexual development than with a girl's. That development is more fragile and prone to "errors." The fact that most people who have sexual disorders and paraphilias are men seems to bear this out.

Anyway, an interesting subject, for sure. I'm not sure if it accounts for all the types of transgenderism out there (from fetishistic transvestites who get a sexual kick from the clothes to bona fide transsexuals who ask nothing better than to live, invisibly as it were, as women) but it's certainly something to consider. Thanks for bringing it up, Shenica.

Love,
CJ

[Loretta Ann]

Hi Shenica,

Yes, I think that my average post that's a few paragraphs averages about an hour. Most recently one took me three hours. The extra length off time was due to it being a sensitive post that needed to be carefully worded.

[Michelle]

Hi, CJ

This is a very interesting topic. for some time now I've been seeing debate about the difference betwen TV's,and Cd's. Personally, I thought the two terms were interchangeable - transvestite being the clinical term for crossdresser.
Now I know (at least I think so)what kind of crossdresser I am.

Hugs, Michelle

[Valerie]

I don't really know if we would ever know exactly what to call us, . Maybe we are all the normal people and everyone else is different, .

[Shenica]

Hi CJ.

I don't recall the names of those whose theories I remember. I guess it is natural to seek some 'authority' on the subject who can help us understand who we are. Perhaps justification or 'permission' to be the way we are.

I remember knowing that the urge ( need?) to crossdress was 'different'. There was a lot of talk about sex, but this topic never came up, so it must be something 'weird' or 'deviant' This goes back to before puberty, and before I understood anything about sexuality or reproduction. I recall wanting to write to ''Ann Landers" or "Dear Abby" and ask about my situation. I experimented with the wording, trying to make it sound so 'adult' but a few years later I realized how juvenile it would have sounded.

I did find some comfort in one of the theories. My father travelled a lot for his work, and my mother was (and still is at 95) a very strong, domineering type. Looking back, I am sure that my dad took the job to keep his sanity. So I 'fit' that theory.

I never thought about the 'castration fear'. I also don't thing I ever wanted to assume a female identity. At that time, I just really enjoyed the clothing. Probably, I could never 'get the girl' when I was in school, so my brain got mis-wired to want to wear girl's clothing. Or perhaps my brain was already mis-wired so I didn't go after the girls as much.

I find a number of difficulties with Freud's findings. Some writers maintain that while his methods may be ok, his clients (and therefore research subjects) were primarily sexually frustrated upper and middle class Austrian women. So, his conclusions probably apply primarily to that population.

There was also the theory that crossdressers liked to be in a situation where they were required or forced to be dressed. This relieved the 'guilt' of wanting to do something 'abnormal' (for the times).

Long before I understood any of this, I had frequent fantasies of situations where there were no male clothes available to me, so I had to wear female clothes. It took many forms - being kidnapped, fire, whatever. Looking back, it was never sexual, just the clothing. But at that time I was not much of a sexual being.

The one thing that stands out was my total belief that this was sufficiently different that it must be kept completely secret.

What I took from that reading was that circumstances helped create the desire (need) and that I was not responsible for it. That helped me to be at peace with it .

One time when my wife and I were discussing my dressing, I explained how my older sister ( by 3.5 years) got all the breaks and special attention. My wife suggested that this situation was a contributor to me wanting to be more female. I had not made that connection.

What wonderfully complex creatures we are...

And does it really make any significant difference NOW how we got to be this way? Perhaps to the way we feel about ourselves.

shenica

[Jeannie]

I have pictures of me at 8 when the neighborhood girls would dress me up and I loved it. I grew up with My 2 aunts,mother and sister. My dad was always working. I loved to try on their clothes and it started out as a sexual experience but turned into a need to make me feel whole as a person. Beauty said it best. Transvestites dress for sex and sexual pleasure. Most cross dressers dress for comfort and serenity. I don't dress for sexual pleasure but would love for a women to make love to me when dressed. I'm a heterosexual man but definately a submissive lesbian woman. A woman could do anything to me in bed and I would just love it. That's as close as I can describe how I feel inside.Does that make any sense to you ladies out there? Am I alone in feeling like this? Hugs and kisses.


LOVE
Jeannie