Early sexualization

[Robyn Katie]

I realize this may be a touchy topic. Please edit or even remove if so. I'm anxious not to spoil my wonderful welcome from all my sisters here!

But I find myself asking this question, and wondering if it is a key -- not THE key, but one of the keys to CD awareness and desire:

Does the fact of having been introduced to sex unusually early in childhood have a bearing on later (or even simultaneous) development of desire to crossdress?

Let me back off and explain "early sexualization," hopefully without hitting any hot buttons. "ES" has become a byword and a touchy topic among those who were sexually abused as young children. Why? Because abusers know full well (and share the information with their peers) that by sexualizing children early -- say, before age 12 or so -- they quite reliably create a willing, or at least compliant, victim.

But that obviously is not the only way in which one can become sexualized in childhood. A far more benign and happy way is, for example, what has happened to some of our fortunate sisters -- to have been dressed as a doll or playmate by their own GG sisters.

Early sexualization can certainly happen, too, through the child's solitary observation of the GGs in his family. Something triggers it -- like what some sisters have said on threads here about watching their mothers dress with care and grace.

Probably examples of early sexualization could be multiplied, but let's restate my question:

Is it likely that such early exposure, leading to a particular vulnerability to sexual impressions, topics, fascinations and needs, is one factor that creates the inner landscape of a crossdresser, in at least a significant number of us?

I feel in my own self a burning curiosity about this -- without particularizing further, I'll admit ES happened to me -- and I wonder about others.

Apologies if I have offended anyone -- that was not the purpose of this inquiry.

Also, I realize that my question takes for granted a topic that is debatable and has been debated here: whether sexuality has a major role in CDing. Clearly for some it does, for some it doesn't. That will, I imagine, have a bearing on how you answer, and may actually break us into two separate groups, one that does experience it sexually, the other that doesn't. That in itself may be interesting to us all.

Thanks to you all for your being here and your caring and compassion. Love, Robyn Katie

[Jill S]

No offence taken, many of us are searching for answers. I was turned out as they used to say before I was 9 years old. I have read everything I can find on Transgenderism and have never found any research that points to any event , or how we were raise, or birth order. I think the guilt of being molested may get wrapped up into the whole why am I like this deal. If you did a survey of all trans people I bet you would find we match up pretty closely in all ways with the Muggles. Too bad such research is usually biased one way or the other. O I forgot I was putting on women's cloths before I was 9 so being raped didn't do it for me.

[Anita]

Hi Robyn--
You did a very good job of introducing that subject. I can't speak for the mods, but it seems fine to me.

I really don't know whether there was ES, but I suspect there was. I don't remember it specifically.

Some members argue that they started CDing very young, before sexuality came into play for them. My earliest memory of CDing was at 3 or 4, and I was already aware that sexuality and gender had some link; I just didn't know exactly what it was.

[DonnaT]

No ES in my history.

[Anne-Marie]

No ES history whatsoever in my case, nor was I ever dressed as a doll or similar things in childhood. As I grew up I gradually came to see that women's clothing was far more beautiful, soft and sensuous than men's, and started desiring to wear skirts, blouses and fem underwear for the feel.

I doubt that the ES theory can hold as an explanation for the desire or fetish to crossdress. Crossdressing goes far back in human culture worldwide and appears in ancient epics and stories. Nearer to our time, CD motives are also common in Shakespeare's dramas and some of Tennyson's poetry, for example.

[Philippa]

but i suppose theres no way of defining why, everybodys different, i only started to dress up a few years ago when i had mdd, just as a way to escape reality, but now i still do it because i like it (despite nobody knowing) got to judge each case on it merrits, although i probably answered that completely wrong, if so, sorry

[Carolynn]

So OK, I approached this from a different direction. Looking back on my own experiences, I knew I was a girl by the time I was 3, and fully expected to develop as one. I had not been dressed up, or otherwise treated as a little girl, it was just the way I felt, and based on the differences in my own body. I preferred girl playmates, cooperative games rather than aggressive, competitive ones, and I would stop playing and go home if games with boys got too rough.

My favorite two playmates and friends were girls through years 5-7. I did play dress up with one of them sometimes, as a guest for tea, and we had our dolls as our babies and I could help her fix the tea and set the table. We had tried playing house with me as daddy, but neither knew what daddies did other than disappear for "work", so I found it boring and objected. We dressed up in her mother's cast off clothes with lots of safety pins. We also played cards, like Old Maid, and paper dolls making “clothes” for them using the ones in the book for patterns, and picture puzzles. Since my gender dysphoria was well developed before the dress up stuff, even if I didn't know what it was, I have to doubt that the dress up had any stimulus. I did like it, it felt right and natural, and I was not embarrassed having an adult seeing me dressedt. My mother and Sondra’s mother made sure I did not go home with it on, apparently not wanting my father to see..

I also played Cowboy and Outlaws with my cousins and their friends and was happy with the most rudimentary props for that game, a cap pistol was all that was needed or a pointed finger and some sound effect!! . Some of the boys, two in particular, had to have their hats, boots, holsters and cap pistols, a bandana, and always wore a western shirt and jeans. Come to think of it, except for the pistols, they still do!! One has a ranch and horses, while the other owns a gas station/mechanic repair place and builds and races stock cars with his sons. He still dresses cowboy when he is not getting grease all over his clothes. Would that have been Cowboyization? I would usually tire quickly of that game and go to the house and read.

There were several events in life that led three of my surviving cousins of our generation to tell me that it made sense for me to transition, as they never really thought I was very much a boy anyway. In one case I cared for three puppies that had distemper, and following the directions from a vet, managed to save one of them from death. She was 8 months old when she ran in front of a wheat truck and was killed. I was sooo torn up about it, and when I found my grandfather was taking her to the dump, I took her body and made my cousins help me bury her, crying the entire time, and they knew better by then than to deny my wishes when I was in extreme emotion.

As far as an early experience stimulating "sexualization", I had an older cousin named Daniel. His mother and older sisters would not let him have a haircut as a youngster, and by the time he was three he had really long hair the girls loved to take care of. He was like their big doll. Just before he turned 4, they had made a dress for him, put his long hair in sausage curls, and put a little make up and jewelry on him and took him to a professional photographer and got a picture of him. He was soooo furious, you would have to see the pic to believe. His lower lip was pushed way out, his eyes even in the black and white photo were sparking and he was looking out from under his eyebrows ---well, you have heard of "if looks could kill"? That is the expression he had. In spite of the anger, he still looked like an angry “Shirley Temple”. His sisters teased him with copies of that picture at every family reunion until his death at 68 from prostate cancer complications. He tried to get every one of the pics and tear them up, but they just kept making more!!! He did not become a CD, and was made angry all over again each time he saw the pic. So, it was not a CD stimulus for him, though the experience meets the description in your post.

The sad journey of David Rheimer who was the boy raised as a girl after a mistake during circumcision is also illustrative. He never felt comfortable being raised as a girl, and acted out and had a perfectly horrible childhood. This was orchestrated by Dr. John Money who essentially ran an experiment in the nature vs nurture question, and the result was very much a resounding support of nature over nurture, underscored when David killed himself in his 30s.

So, all the above going forward, I would suggest that gender dysphoria is caused by something in our nature, perhaps in the genes or in the timing of homones in the prenatal environment, something that feminine expression satisfies a need for, and for some it is more of a need than for others. If early experiences were perceived by the individual as satisfying, then maybe it could have a stimulus. But if not, it would go the other way.

[KimberlyS]

ES was not a factor for me that I know of. In fact my CDing did not even have a sexual component until college and and early part of marriage. But looking back the only reason it was a component was that was the only way I could relate to it given the knowledge I had at the time. And at the time it was also a way my wife could deal with it. Once that aspect was realized and that component labeled as not needed, it was removed by my wife and she had great trouble dealing with my CDing without that component.

kimberlys-cd
joe in a skirt

[Absaroka]

Robyn Katie,

It's an excellent subject thoughtfully presented. But I have a couple of problems with it. Not problems in that I think you ventured into wrong territory, just problems in terms of confusion.

You spoke of ES in terms of child abuse and then other. The topic then further devolved into a discussion of wether people were abused as children. But then there is that "other"

Children develop sexually. Children have some sort of sexual feeling from infancy on and it is manifested in a variety of way, some acceptable in some cultures, some not. For example in many cultures the mothers tickling a babies genitals to sooth the baby is considered normal and not abusive. In our culture the idea of little boys and girls being intrigued by each others nudity ( why are we different?) as well as being intrigued by their anatomical differences from adults of both genders is pretty normal. In my case I figured I'd look like my father when I got older and that my sister would look like our mother when she got older. No big deal.

On the other hand, I had sexual feelings towards women from as far back as I can remember. As is considered normal, these feelings were strongest towards my mother. In child rearing books it says that most human beings will never love anyone as passionately as they love their mother at age two. Healthy psycho sexual development has to do with us eventually repressing these feelings (why do you think Motherf----- is such a potent swear word?) and expressing them towards women of our peer group. Which I did. But......and here's the big but, somewhere about age 8 I started to associate the sexual feelings I had towards my mom with feelings towards her clothes, and started trying them on. Since I knew I had just violated some sort of big taboo it aquired the power of a secret. Combined with the power of sex the rest for me was a foregone conclusion. And being the person I am, I got stuck there even as the rest of me moved on.

I was not abused. So leaving aside that whole question, I managed to sexualize myself at an age when most children are doing this in one way or another. Had this been more pronounced, say had my older cousin who I had a terrible crush on wanted to dress me up in her clothes, no doubt the feelings would have been far stronger. Had she decided to have sex with me, I would probably have had as many problems as other men I have known who were deflowered gently but still innappropriately by older women when they were really far too young to deal with this. And then there also be all that shame and guilt because she was my cousin. Fortunaletly none of that happened, she was just a nice older cousin with a bit of a soft spot in her heart for me because she knew I had a crush on her.

So I guess my thoughts, completely unscientific, are as follows. Early exposure to crossdressing instigated by others may well increase the likelihood of it continuing. But a great many of us initiate this ourselves in secret. Early sexual exposure to other stuff- probably not except that if an 8 year old is walking around horny all the time due to early exposure to sexual stimulus he is probably more likely than other 8 year olds to find unusual outlets. Early sexual abuse and rape-I suspect not. These things often lead to a lessening of the sex drive due to their emotionally disturbing nature, even if they simultaneously lead to increased sexual activity. I'm thinking of people I've known who were at one time in the sex trade for example, who often saw sex as either a way to make money or as a weapon, and who had to go through a lot of personal change to see sex as an expression of love and respect. Often they said that although they told themselves at the time that altough prostitution was about getting money, they later realized it was also a form of self abuse. But then the folks I know who were in the life are mostly recovered drug addicts so they generally had a negative attitude towards everything including breathing.

Great topic.

Absaroka

[Amelie-Laveau]

I was trying to figure out how to answer this topic question, a very good question at that. Then I read Absaroka’s post and she said exactly what I wanted to say:


Early sexual abuse and rape-I suspect not. These things often lead to a lessening of the sex drive due to their emotionally disturbing nature, even if they simultaneously lead to increased sexual activity. I'm thinking of people I've known who were at one time in the sex trade for example, who often saw sex as either a way to make money or as a weapon, and who had to go through a lot of personal change to see sex as an expression of love and respect. Often they said that although they told themselves at the time that altough prostitution was about getting money, they later realized it was also a form of self abuse. But then the folks I know who were in the life are mostly recovered drug addicts so they generally had a negative attitude towards everything including breathing.

All of what Absaroka’s words are true for me,, that is why I never could fall in love, I can never feel what true love feels like, this feeling escapes me. This is also why I hate everything, I hate men, I hate women and sadly, I hate most cds as well. Oh yea, I needed men, but I could never love a man, and as Am says, for me sex was and is a form of self abuse, the more pain and abuse from sex the better I feel,, the more pain, the more I hate the world, the more I hate, the better I feel. I wasn’t abused at too young an age, bout 14-15, but it was nasty, real nasty. And as the question asks, well sort of asks,,, yes, ES has definitely had an effect on me becoming a tgirl, to me, these events are very much linked together. I wasn’t a girl from birth, my brain wasn’t even wired wrong from birth which some say gives them the feelings to dress. My brain was f-ed up later on in life, and I tried and tried many times to fix my brain but I can’t, it’s stuck.


PS- As far as hating cds,, it’s usually OK. I don’t want to hate, but sometimes when a cd gets close to me in a personal way,, I kinda treat them bad,, sorry bout that.

[Michelle Miller]

Late Sexuality here...I didn't have much luck with the whole dating scene until I got to college...and even then, it was hit or miss most of the time.

Come to think of it, I never saw my parents be affectionate with each other growing up...a running joke in our family was that they didn't even kiss each other at their wedding.

[Amanda Barber]

But I find myself asking this question, and wondering if it is a key -- not THE key, but one of the keys to CD awareness and desire:

Does the fact of having been introduced to sex unusually early in childhood have a bearing on later (or even simultaneous) development of desire to crossdress?

For me at least, CDing started very early, earliest memories are pre 4/5 years old. Earlier than anything else regarding memories of ES, social situations, environment.

[Jillian]

So, all the above going forward, I would suggest that gender dysphoria is caused by something in our nature, perhaps in the genes or in the timing of homones in the prenatal environment, something that feminine expression satisfies a need for, and for some it is more of a need than for others. If early experiences were perceived by the individual as satisfying, then maybe it could have a stimulus. But if not, it would go the other way.

I'm with Carolynn on this. I'd say that the TG or CD "pull" or "gene" or whatever you want to call it is ingrained at birth and individual socialization determines how it's expressed (or repressed, as the case may be).

As for the ES specific question, given the responses here I don't think you can necessarily link the two. Even among the dozen responses here there's not really a clear consensus. ES and how it affects those who experience it continues to be a sensitive issue and due to its nature and (unfortunately) its fairly widespread occurence it's going to be difficult to find consistent common threads in those people as adults. Me personally, I engaged in "you show mine and I'll show you yours" at around 4 or 5 but I don't think that should really count.

[CherryLynn]

I know it wasn't early ES with me,. I tend to agree Jillian and Carolynn. That 9t's something in the genes and hormones play a part too. Never really got into the typical male bonding stuff= sports, cars. chasing "chics".

Did have cross dressing experiences when I was 7 but my real attraction to women's clothing and makeup started at age 12. That's when I sent to see a Child Psychologist, never was given a reason why. I did grow up, being quiet, shy and reserved but not sure they where the only reasons I was sent.

[Jillian]

That 9t's something in the genes and hormones play a part too. Never really got into the typical male bonding stuff= sports, cars. chasing "chics".

That "typical male bonding stuff" is wholly personal experience as well. Socialization, as much as it can be glossed over in broad strokes and generalizations is ultimately a very personal thing as well. The fact that I dress and take care of my body in a classically "feminine" way doesn't affect whatsoever my love for baseball, cars, and good beer.

And I spent plenty of time in my youth "chasing chicks" and pretty much still do today. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that ultimately it's something inside you that moves you to CD or whatever and that really has very little to do with how you were raised or how you express your gender at any part of your life. Those things may certainly affect your experience but there's no way you can look at a boy at age four who prefers to play with dolls and say that he's going to grow up to be a crossdresser. Alternatively, a boy who spent his youth playing sports won't necessarily grow up to be the pinnacle of masculinity.