Crossdressers-Haven.com

I am not one to put a lot of shock into some of the old school Head shrinkers out there, so I want to approach something from a different angle. Pavlov and his dogs shows to me some very interesting things that also apply to human nature. I will not go into all that his experiments exposed, I will leave you to look into that later.

I this tender age of 59, I have been dressing in lingerie too many years to count. As I have gotten older most of the reasons for dressing are still there. My start was different from many, but it is the end result that I wish to discuss. As a young teen I would dress in my mothers clothes and prance around the house when no one was home. As I was the youngest, with both of my sisters being married by the time that I was 11, I had alot of empty house time. It was during one of these dress up times that I had my first ejaculation, then later the second and so on. Hence the bell rang and I got pleasure. So, the imprinting on my brain started with womens clothes, particularly lingerie, being something that brought pleasure. When I would have a nocturnal emission, the dreams were almost always about wearing bras and panties. Over the years this has toned down some, but the drive is still there.

When I first got married, I thought that this would go away, as I now had a better option for release(a selfish motive). In reality, 2 things happened, I had a wife with different drives and cycles, and I had a dresser full of lingerie to try on, in my free time. The first 8 years of our marriage, I worked shifts, and she worked steady days. Now I had the "empty house" again to prance around as I pleased. The behavior of womens clothing and masturbation was getting very well entrenched. The games played before the final moments, would get stretched out to maximize the whole event. I could go most of the day dressed, but the end was always the same.

The coward that I was stopped me from ever saying anything, and left my wife with the moods that would come from my abstaining from the dressing, or the last purge. I wanted to ring the bell and get that release. Then I finally told her she was relieved that I was not having an affair on her. In examining the why's of telling, I saw the telling as being selfish, in that I could stop hiding and remove the fear of being caught. The new openness brought me into a whole new realm, one of being able to dress at will and buy what I wanted without fear. Yet, I was always looking for reassurance, and still hid much of my behaviors.

Jump ahead to now, I underdress 24/7, but I still like to "get off" especially when certain articles of clothing are worn. Dressing for me is a very sexual thing. Just like Pavlov's dogs, the bell rings, and the dogs salivate, when I wear certain clothes I want to "get it off". If anything has changed, it has changed because I worked at it. It is difficult to get out of the deeply grooved "wagon rut" that I have traversed over the years. My wife knows what I am doing, and as long as she "gets it" when she wants it, she doesn't seem to mind. This is something that we have talked about.

Now this may not be your story, but I wonder how much is the same in the behavior category. We get pleasure out of wearing womens clothes, for whatever reason that we may have, and it has been so deeply ingrained in us that it would be difficult to get out of it. This is assuming that we would want to get out of it. By example, a smoker does not quit, until they want to. With them there are health reasons to quit, but what would be our reasons, if we had to? Is crossdressing an acquired taste, like the way that we would drink our coffee? Are we looking for some excuse to blame, for our behavior?

I desire to accept myself for who I am. I have made more strides in this area in the last year due to being a part of this forum. I have to be true to myself and honest enough to admit the why's and wherefore's as to why I do what I do. I do not need some "head shrinker" to tell me that I get pleasure out of dressing in lingerie and womens clothing. That is why I do it, pleasure, if there was no pleasure I would have quit years ago. So, what is wrong with getting a little happiness and pleasure while living in this world? This is assuming that we are hurting no one else. I can not speak for all of the reasons for why others dress. I guess I am wondering if we are just making things more complicated than they may actually be?

Thank you for a very interesting and honest post, I think what you say makes a lot of sense.

I suppose I have to say this, but the other side of what you're talking about is something I've been offered. When I was in my early 20s it was suggested to me (not very strongly, it has to be said) that I try electro-shock treatment to deal with the CDing. This is a form of aversion therapy which negatively reinforces (rather than positively reinforces, like you're talking about) the desire to dress up. I declined, feeling it wouldn't work (at all). Electro-shock treatment doesn't have a great reputation (I believe it was used with Spike Milligan).

Good God, electroshock as a cure for CDing! That is positively barbaric. Anyway who wants to be cured anyhow!

I reckon it depends on the type of pleasure one got initially, which could depend on when one started.

I was too young to get any sexual pleasure out of it.

Note that I quit smoking cold turkey, so if CDing were one of my habits, I should have been able to quit when I wanted to, IMHO, but I couldn't.

First things first, I do not agree with the use of negative re-enforcement. I see nothing but problems arising from the use of it. You may have to give some form of attention getting devise, like a smack, it is to get their attention first, then use a different method to teach and train. If anything, I would be prone to say that another type of pleasure would be needed to replace the one that is currently being used. Replace something, with something better.

Secondly, I do not necessarily agree with the comment that, "I was to young to get any sexual pleasure out of it. I have observed children and have watched my own grow up. I have seen boys play with themselves and girls rub themselves also. Whether this was for sexual pleasure, or if it was just a feel good moment, they are getting something out of it, or they would not have been doing it. I do not claim to know what goes on in the mind of a child and I do not remember some of the why's and wherefores of my youth. I operate on the premise that there is a reason why we do the things that we do. We just have to get to the root of it all. There was an expression that was used years ago, " if it feels good, do it".

I can only speak for myself. All I know is that I get something out of wearing lingerie and womens clothes. Is the feeling releasing endorphins into my body? Are my serotonin levels going up as I put the clothes on? I just know that it makes me feel good and at peace with myself, and the world. So people, leave me to do my own thing, I am not hurting you, and I do not see where I am hurting myself, if I am keeping it to myself. If there has been any problems arise from this behavior, it is from a society that does not seem to like anything that is not conforming to there standards.

We are never too young for a sexual reaction. Even babies in the womb get erections.

Gillian what you say rings true for me. I think that we sometimes however fall in to a trap of it's either sexual or it's not. For me CDing is sexual and also sometimes something else.

Zari

I like your post here, Gillian, and appreciate your honesty.

Gillian said:

I guess I am wondering if we are just making things more complicated than they may actually be?

Yep. But it can get complicated when there are other people involved be they directly involved or you're trying to exclude them. It's people that are complicated.

I took years to accept me; I tried to stop. I had the carnal pleasures going on, etc etc. Once I simply accepted myself, dealing with other people got easier. I knew what I wanted and I started to get it. I dealt with people only when it was important. Like now, it's important to me to not hide any more than necessary.

I agree with Gillian that sometimes we make it more complicated than it is. Unquestionably I derive pleasure from it, as Gillian said, that is the whole point. Whether is sexual or not is an interesting question, but strangely enough when I smoke (which is almost never) I find it sexually arousing. On the other hand, since I dress up regularily I don't find it that exciting, I just feel more relaxed and comfortable rather than stimulated.