The marvel at WHY we want to Cross-Dress

[Diane Light]

First point I would like to make here is that I realize this may not be the proper area for this "thought provoking" essay. It would appear that there are some area's I am restricted to, so if any moderator feels the need to move or delete this work, I will understand.

Second point is to understand a little about this small essay. I have read over 100 books on human development and studied fetishes, fantasies, religion, spirituality and many other field studies of basically why we are, why we do what we do, where we may be going, what we look for, etc. It's important here that I give opinions, but in many cases I try to "provoke thought". I never argue. I like debate, but if I feel a debate is not open minded............I move on.

Thirdly, my lifestyle started off in the BD/SM arena. Probably why I searched why I was so fascinated by "female domination". It is through this long road of learning that I found my true belief, and why I share this with you.

Allow me to begin:


There has always been a Patriarch society. Men have always been in control. Of the household, governments, society, virtually the world. In my studies I tend to ask some questions that make me believe a different era is not only coming, but the past era has been a cheat, and many women have paid the price.

Question 1- Adam and Eve

Men have always put women down because she was the first to sin. All through history she has had to bear this burden, but let's look at it from a different standpoint.

Satan (an archangel) tempted Eve. Eve (a human) tempted Adam

Who succumbed to the weaker force? Adam.
In the grand scheme of things, Satan knew he could break Adam, because he knew someone a simple as Eve could. So he had to tempt the stronger of the two to let the stronger........tempt the weaker.

My thoughts? Men are physically stronger, women are spiritually and intellectually superior. Satin probably knew it would not work to tempt Adam first, if Eve may have not eaten the fruit. Of course, you would have to believe the Bible and this may be a parable. But it's one women have had over them throughout history.............by men.

Who would argue that if the world today was run under a matriarch society, it would be much more peaceful? How many world leaders that wanted domination over other countries, the world or whatever.........were females? How many corrupt politicians in Washington are females? How many child molesters, murderers, car jackers, drug kingpins, pimps, extortionists, Wall Street frauds, and hard core criminals are females?

Now, where are these females? Nurses, mothers raising children especially where to father decides he wants to move on to better things, authors, teachers, executives, secretaries, waitresses, etc. Females have worked hard to make a place for themselves and it is now becoming eveident that man and man's greed is what is destroying our economy (with greed), the world ecological system (corporate greed), wars (greed over possession).......well, you get the point.

So here we get into the meat and potato's:

The male and female brains operate differently. The pleasure and pain areas are quite different in how they perceive pleasure and pain (the two driving forces that control our lives). Every decision we make is for one of those two reasons.........to avoid pain.........or gain pleasure (thank you Mr Robbins)

The Estrogen based brain is one that is more at peace, neurologically operates faster and has the ability to retain more information. (NIMH). The testosterone based brian is excited easily, decisions are made prematurely, and not always used to proper efficiency. (NIMH).

It does not surprise me that as this world is whittling away, that women are finding the affection and the love they require from other women. After all, men are still acting like daddy and wants to come into their life and run things to make it better. Well...........women are proving that they don't need men to "have it better". As a matter of fact, like everything else, men are getting the reputation of making things worse. Then they can't understand why women prefer women. Once again, this show the lack of intellect of males, as they rely on their penises to once again lead them to happiness. They had their chance..........and now it's time for the female to have hers.

The New Age is upon us.

Women have withstood mans abuse long enough. They appear to be rising to power and changing the rules, and good for them. Men who dress like women idolize the structure and the femininity that has emerged from the new female. One of strength, but also compassion. To be like a female feels good, it feels right, because we were raised to respect, be sincere, trustworthy, to love, affectionate......those tthings that females have held so dear, and that men have misused while they had the keys. My loving male and female friends, to all of you.........it's people like you that have come together with the commonality to keep the female led idea alive. Wanting to be femininie, dress feminine, becoming female completely...........is a blessing........there should NEVER be guilt associated with something so special.

It's the males love for the female idea so much that he wants to be more like her, look like her, idolize her, be her. Any woman's boyfriend or husband should feel honored that a male is doing this. In some ways, it is a stronger, more emotional love than she will ever feel from the typical male. Because it IS showing he is desiring the trust, honesty, companionship and sincerity that only a female can give, and he actually only needs her nurturing, which she biologically has plenty to give. What a great relationship, that no one person can break easily. When both understand, the love is even greater between them than the typical male led relationship.

We are born who we are. What we become is our gift to our creator. You do not live your life for others, you live it for you. A long time ago I accepted that females are superior to males. This is my belief and I accept it totally. I have about 20 girl friends that are close to me because of my beliefs and I love them all, and they me. This is the best time of my life, and at 60, I wished I would have done it sooner.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. As always, I debate anything I write, but as I said, I really try to provoke thought with opinion.

Let me know.....until then

Luv to you all

Diane

[Carol Ann]

Diana,

Sweetheart I believe you are trying to over think something that to me is so simple.

Why?,
well because I want to, I enjoy it, and see nothing wrong with it. To me they are just cloths to cover the body, so what difference does it make.

No I don't want to become a real women (SRS), but I have to best of two lives and I can be whom ever I wish.

My mother used to call it dress up and play time and just let me be, that was 57 years ago and I still play dress up.

[Diane Light]

I'm curious, Carol Ann

If it's only clothes, and if I am correct, Carol Ann is not your given name at birth, why would you think it is simplistic? We could say pulling a trigger on a gun is also.

My point is that this is more of a growing movement towards a viewpoint that has been latent. Whether you just wear some clothes or go the full route is not the point.

You feel comfortable and it's simplistic. Others my not feel it that way and may struggle for definition. They may get more out of what I write than yourself.

I am happy for you and hope the best

Luv

Diane

[DanteCarrie (FTM)]

.........erm ........interesting.
Firstly I'd like to say as a female I ma really flattered that you feel we are superior Diane. thanks thats really sweet.
Unfortunetly I don't think I agree with you.

Firstly because you can't lump all females together we are all SO VERY different from one another.

Secondly everyone has a different idea of what are superior qualities.

THirdly I am not so sure these stereotypical female qualities are true and if they are whether they are necessarily better. Not bad just not better.

However your opinion is fascinting and well worth reading and worth explaining why I think its a tad erm well not really reflecting what women are really like.

OK BD/SM totally get it. Very interested and aroused by the idea of female domination. them dominating men and men dominating men. A big interest in bondage and light sado masochism.
Patriarch society true it was/still kinda is. because men were stronger perhaps but still unjustified however the reaction to that has been "radical femininsm' not that women should be equal but that they are DIFFERENT yet superior. I've never seen this as making sense. emphasising the difference between genders does not help them nor people who are more in between genders and it does not help your superior argument as it can be easily argued those differences make one weaker and you just happen to be drawn to weaker personality traits. one could say.
Adam and Eve is irrelavant. not all societies had these myth in heir culture in the past its very western and is totally irrelevant now as its religious and for anyone unreligious it is pointless no one believes it unless they be a fool so the whole who tempted who is irrelevant. Men supressed women for many other reasons with their theories that we are too emotional bla bla bla.
Ok first relevant thing: women are spiritually and intellectually superior. If you are atheist or unreligious and believe in logic and science then being spiritual is weak and women being spiritual is not superior its inferior its like saying they are more prone to believe things that are superstition. And how are they intellectually superior? the evidence? i'd say we are equal. some people are more socially able, some are better at maths or music and this is not based on gender. In fact in the past women were known to go into sciences less and have less interest in maths and science . I think this is from lack of encouragment but still no evidence to say we are superior just the same. just people all with different abilities.
there are female child molesters. less but some indeed a countable number. many many female murders whether from passion or psychopathy or even female recorded serial killers. yep some sell drugs too shock horror. less of them does not mean that there are none in fact there are significant numbers and these are females proving given enough opportunity we are as capable as men of being evil and cruel.
there are male nurses and house husbands they are not trying to be female the just like kids ir like helping people.

The male and female brians opperate differently. As sad as this makes me this is somewhat true. Hormones decide our sex, our temperment and the way we see the world. Oestrogen (spelt with an O in the UK at least) is present in both MALEs and Females but at different levels and both contain testosterone. both are required for health. these levels not only differ between sexes but between individuals vastly. There are men with quite high oestrogen for their sex and women with higher testosterone.

women liking women. not sure what you mean by this but if you mean as lovers well there has been much research to suggest homosexuality in women is caused by higher levels of testosterone. High testosterone makes your sex drive higher and attracted to more feminine features in lovers. so in a sense women with passion are more like stereotypical men.
women have suffered abuse so why not let us be socially equal? not just opportunities or put us on some pedestal and be so overly polite let us be ourselves be aggressive. At least recognise women for what they are. I like women, I've dated them and they can be real bitches. as bad as men.

Its so nice you idolise women. If men who crossdress are idolising women what about women who crossdress? we must respect the male qualities of strength, passion, bloodlust. we msut desire to emulate them. perhaps because we are lile them but society through generations has traied us to be what it wants women to be. nuturing and soft. what if we are really not this but we are so brainwashed. what about women who kill their babies from lack of any bond, women who have sex then abandon their partners, who like to fight. they exist and seem to grow in frequency as society progresses. ......hhmmm i wonder why.

the philosopher J.S. Mill loved women. In a time when women were very supressed (victorian era) he stood in parliament and said we should have the vote and he was laughed at by his collegues. he loved his girlfriend (not wife they didn't marry) and attributed much of his work to her but no one believed she could have written it and he said: we can never know in what ways the female brain is different or if it is even significantly different or what women's qualities as a sex are because we are molded them for so long( thousands of years) that how can we expect them to behave in their true manner to observe their true nature.
It will be many eons before females act outside of their programming and the same is true of men.
I believe their are so many indivduals who are not the stereotype of their sex that there isn;t that much difference that is relevant enough to make note of and making note of it just alienates those who don't fit in your box and i do think your view alienates the less feminine of girls. i do notice you do not mention more masculine women or those who strive to be.
anyway thats kinda why I think you are wrong.
Also get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich already LOLLOL
I love chicks and guys and they are as glorious and disgusting as each other as that is the human condition. amazing and repulsive.

[CJ]

Hi all,

Hmmm... interesting.

The issue of women's superiority always brings about high-spirited discussion.

I also tend to view women as naturally superior to men... but I don't know why. Is this view related to purely sexual fantasies? to spiritual viewpoints? to political ideals? to a mixture of all these and more? Personally, I'm still working on sorting all that out in my own brain.

I do know that, for me, the feminist notion of Patriarchy as an institution does hold meaning. Patriarchy is a social construction even as is the very notion of gender itself. Patriarchy has a foundation; has been built up, brick by brick, by many male hands throughout the ages (even if unwittingly); and, now, patriarchy is showing signs of wear. There are cracks in the building. Whether or not it'll topple at some future date remains to be seen.

The rate of female infanticide in developing countries is still alarmingly high. Families want boys, not girls. Girls are an expensive liability in many areas of the globe. This, at any rate, is what parents will say; they'll never say that they left their newborn girl to die, exposed on a barren hillside, just because they wish for patriarchy to continue holding its sway on us all. Nevertheless, patriarchy does hold sway. Even in transgenderland, it's permissible for women to want to emulate men but still a huge taboo for men to want to emulate women.

Dante is right, I think; though there may be some significant physiological and neurological differences between males and females, this doesn't mean those differences translate well into the process of socialization. Many women possess what are considered traditionally masculine personality or character traits and many men possess what are considered traditionally feminine character or personality traits.

I think the "battle of the sexes" (to use a totally hoary expression) needs to be recast in terms of desirable social values, not in terms of the essential "properties" or "domains" of women and men.

For example, it seems we live in a culture that values competition over cooperation, rugged individualism over consensus, the getting of wealth over the getting of wisdom, aggressiveness over contemplative introspection, destruction over construction, legalism over ethics, the letter of the law over the spirit of the law, power over energy, superstitious fear over natural reverence, death over life, hard angles over soft curves (witness the crazy quest for the construction of the world's tallest peni--uh, I mean skyscraper).

Rather than see these antagonistic values as inherently or essentially male or female, why not let them stand as belonging to all human beings, everywhere, and then simply aim for the ones we believe are best suited to both our thriving as well as to our survival as a civilization? In other words, to espouse a set of values not because it's somehow "woman-like" but just because we believe those values will make us and those around us grow and thrive. Maybe, we can start by socializing girls and boys with this view in mind, rather than by affirming that some kid isn't allow to show any emotion other than anger just because he's made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails rather than of sugar and spice and everything nice.

Yes, the patriarchical mindset is alive and well. I truly wish it weren't. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm perhaps a crossdresser for purely philosophical reasons rather than for merely sexual, social, psychological, or political ones. Could it be that my nurturing values traditionally considered feminine within myself--by adopting the dress and mannerisms (or, is that "womannerisms") of people generally associated, through socialization, with a set of nurturing values (yes, read: women)--will bring about a sea change in how human beings relate to others and to the world around them? Will my wearing a skirt and heels and makeup help to one day save the world? I can only hope so.

Ashley Montagu invented nothing when he wrote The Natural Superiority of Women, back in 1953. Before the advent of institutionalized (and very much male) religion in the West, many cultures held that women had a closer connection to the earth and to life than did men. Women were of the earth and had their being firmly rooted in its life-giving soil. They gave birth to children in the same way that a patch of garden gives birth to sustenance for those same children. Men, on the other hand, sought escape from the earth by worshipping upwards... the sun and the sky and the alleged beings that lived there.

Thankfully, there seems to be a resurgence of a certain desire to reconnect with the earth in the past couple of generations. I think we need it, if we're to live. And we ought to turn to women for help and guidance in this. Or, better yet, we ought to turn to those individuals who exhibit nurturing qualities, be they male or female.

Does this mean that, say, Dante, or anyone else who values the power, strength, and status of males in this culture ought to be considered the villains of the piece? No. The maleness and masculinity of males have their own appeal, too. Moreover, they're absolutely needed in the world as well. Healthy aggressiveness is an integral component of action. Without action, obviously, nothing moves and nothing changes. An aside: I just came back from India a couple of months ago and I finally--finally!--managed to lay hold of a yonilingam (I'd been searching for one for a long time). The locals in New Delhi call it a shivaling. It's a stylized sculpture (often used in ceremonies of worship) illustrating the union of a penis and a vulva. It's not worshipped merely as a representation of genital organs or sexual intercourse but as the union of the very male and upward thrust of the god Shiva's power and strength with the all-encompassing base of his consort Shakti's very female quiet energy. This source of energy is powerless to act in the world without the strength of the male; conversely, the male thrust without the female's "grounding" energy is aimless, fickle, and dangerous. Or so Hindus believe. I believe it, too. In a sense, we're all children of the primordial androgyne so many ancient cultures worshipped (including our own--cf. Plato's version of it in his dialogue, The Symposium).

That Dante, for example, wants to embrace masculinity doesn't surprise me at all. Although I think it's rather more fun and satisfying to embrace femininity, we need a good (certainly, a better) balance of both in the world.

As to the subject at hand, yes, I do worship women. Not as goddesses or whores or as any one of a hundred other stereotypes but simply as women. I like women. I love women. And I do what I can to help women (and, yes, men, too) take whatever tool is at their disposal--whether it be a hammer or a pair of tweezers--to chip away at the aimless, fickle, and dangerous institution that is patriarchy.

Love,
CJ

[Kittie]

Because we like to and need to & that is more important

[DanteCarrie (FTM)]

wow CJ cool post. I really really agree.
haha yeah i like women too but I am aggressive and competitive like males and choose to nurture those qualities i find that beast like quality attractive in women and men but I'm also emotional and i like that too as you say balance is always best. And i think returning to the earth isn't such a bad idea especially as the sea and flying make me ill LOL. anyway epic post babe

[Lacy Mitchell]

I mostly agree with Carol Ann for me its more about playing dressup losing yourself in a happier place being both of who you are. popeye says it best. ( i am what i am) the smarter stronger most powerful person must be crossdresser best of both worlds right. lol

[Absaroka]

It's a great topic, and given how many people and differing cultures there are in the world I suspect most generalizations will fail. But a few comments:

The Adam and Eve theme is a common one. Samson and Delilah, or Salome the head of John the Baptist are other Biblical examples. I think because men have a somewhat different sexual agenda that sex can be used as a weapon by women against some men. I've known a few women who will talk quite openly about this. So the patriarchy has always had some Achilles heels. Another (male centered or patriarchial0 interpretation of this story is that women are intrinsically more evil than men. An interpretation I strongly disagree with.

As for women being more peaceful, in most species the male is expendable, and thus more willing to fight. Think of lions. The lionesses raise the cubs and gather food (hunting) while the males impregnate the females and guard the pride against....other males. But I'm not convinced that women are really all that much more peaceful. Remember that all these bloodthirsty men were born and raised by women. Also think back to your HS days. How many fights between boys were started by girls who got some sort of self esteem by getting boys to fight over them? Or, if you went to an urban school like I and my daughters did, remember there were girls that everyone was afraid of......

More to the point, in traditional Western Native American society b(the Souix, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Absaroka, and so on) torturing captives was considered womens work. Part of this had to do with humiliation. Part of it had to do with how good the women were at torturing captives.

Or consider Queen Elizabeth 1, or Queen Isabella, or Catherine the Great, all of whom oversaw wholesale decimation of indigenous cultures that got in the way of their imperialistic ambitions.

I had a girlfriend once who had a problem with weapons. I thought a good way for her to deal with this problem would be not to carry them, but she disagreed.......She told me about a previous boyfriend. Some girl she didn't like flirted with him and he responded. It really pissed her off. So she befriended the girl, and they went out one night to meet some friends. She sat calmly in the front seat while 5 of her male "friends" raped the girl in the back seat.

But I suppose all you have to do is talk to someone with a daughter in Jr High ( I had two) to become disenchanted with how empathic women can be.

Max Wolf, who was FTM, talks a lot about this issue in his book.

The world is a big place, and a glance at the world news gives little hope that humanity is progressing towards much of anything except self destruction. However I would agree that the more affluent societies seem to be making gradual progress in being more caring and trying to live by moral principals. After all, now we get concerned about collateral damage if a dozen innocent civilians are killed in a bombing raid, when a mere 65 years ago killing as many innocent civilians as possible was a legitimate milatary tactic. So maybe some aspects of Western European society are moving towards some "feminine values.

Here's a final thought. A lot of stuff gets glossed over in the Bible. But read Genesis again. It says "God created man in His image, male and female" We get hung up on the pronouns, forgetting that the Hebrew translation for God is something along the lines of "He who is not to be named" i.e. we do not have the language to describe God. The finite can not comprehend the infinite. But the point is what this quote says, that God (He) is both male and female, and that man is both male and female. But some of that seems to have been forgotten in the translations over the centuries.

Great topic

Zari

[Karren Hutton]

The search for "Why" is futile.. Because no one knows for sure. And even if you did know.. It wouldn't change a thing. You would still love (or hate) to do what you love to do.. So I can't see pursuing something that adds no value to my life going forward. I just accept that this is me and even though I don't necessarily like it all the time, I embrace it and move forward.. To the mall. Shopping! :-).

[Diane Light]

DanteCarrie and CJ

You both bring up very very valid points. Remember, I brought up what I felt was my own thoughts of a particular subject. The debate is welcomed. DC, You bring up very good points as expressed with J. S Mill. And I can even quote more. Still, the figures shows females have a far less rate of convicted felonies against humanity than males.


The mindset of the testosterone based male has made this world less safe through his own greed. Most reading this is probably male and would disagee. but if you dig deep and think about it, it is true. The corporate greed, government greed and control, wall street, all comes from men wanting control. Sure there are some women behind the scenes, but in the end, men will destroy the economy and the world. They are in control. It's a Patriarch system and they are driving us into debt, because they are not as intellectual as much as females.

Diane

[Elizabeth]

Hi Diane,

I have to admit I didn't even finish reading your post. I was really put off by the idea of basing what I believe about myself and transsexuality on the theology of a religion that openly admits the Bible is basically a book of metaphors. Less than 20% of the world's population is Christian. It's a little hard for me to believe that everyone came from Adam and Eve, spread around the world, and forgot they were created by the God of Christianity. Not to mention either there was some serious incest going on or we are not all from Adam and Eve. Not to mention the whole problem with "where did Cain and Able's wives come from?"

As you can see, that whole distraction really got me away from what your essay was actually about. Which is who is stronger, men or women? And how that relates to men who identify as women.

Human babies mature very slowly, taking 12-13 years to reach sexual maturity and the brain still growing and developing beyond 20 years. Because human babies are so helpless for so long, it really requires two parents. One to hunt and gather enough food, build shelter and protect the family, the other to give continual care, nurturing and help with collection and preparation of food, shelter and other life necessities.

Now our society has grown and evolved and we have engineered our society so we all have huge amounts of leisure time in comparison to those who still live in hunter/gatherer societies. This means that two parents are no longer required to raise offspring. Men need not be strong or be particularly good at hunting or physical things. At the same time, women have found they no longer need to spend all their time with offspring. They now assume the duties that were once reserved for men, first out of necessity then later out of tradition.

So with women being able to assume any role that formerly was reserved for men, including wearing the apparel of men, they appear to have more power than men in some regards. I think the super high divorce rate along with new numbers that say fewer people are getting married and waiting longer to do it, underscore this lack of need for two parents to live together or even cooperate for that matter, in raising children.

So I don't see anyone's need to dress as a function of power or perceived power, even though I am quite sure some do it for that reason. I can only see through my own narrow view. I don't dress like a woman because of power or who has an advantage or the other. I dress like a woman, because I am a woman.

I know this is not true for everyone, but it is true for me.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Kittie]

There is no marvel. we wear feme becasue really we are girls

[Debra Russell]

I think the subject of this whole post is like a ball of twine composed of two strands, both different and so intangled that sorting them out is impossably futile but extremly interesting. The strands being one male and one female. At one point the strands are very close or far apart. The closeness being TG,CD, or whatever variation we assoicate with; far apart=identifing the percentage of male or female. History, studying and assiging values to our conclusions are only assumptions we make and not based on any fact based scientific knowledge. I don't like baseing who I am or how I feel on assumption or therory.
I like to dress and feel feminine; I also enjoy being a man - the world needs BOTH of us
Debbie

[Gillian]

Using the biblical story, Adam was at first both male and female. Then he lost a rib and female was separated from him. Man has been trying to get it back ever since then. Why, because he knows something is missing. The problem is, that he has been trying to get it back the wrong way, by force. How ever you see this story, I see it as being about lies, deception, rebellion, and blaming. Most fail to see the blame part. The man said it is your fault God and this woman that you gave me, yet his eyes were wide open. Man has been mad at God and women ever since then, hence the violence and aggression against women. Also the lack of men in church compared to women is due to the same thing, I am mad at God so I will ignore him, or say the he doesn't exist, or some other excuse.
This world needs to be brought back into balance. Whether you want your "rib" back, or you want to clean up the environment. What everything desires is that balance, or harmony that brings peace, and not conflict. The more important question is, where do we come from? If we think that we come from cave dwellers and pond scum, then we will act like them. If we think that we came from God, or a superior being, then we may try to act like them. The first step from my way of seeing things is to get rid of the lies, deception, rebellion, and blaming from my own life. It has been alot less complicated, and there has been more in balance.
The problem that we face is our acceptance into society. Society is the one that gives us these unbalanced rules. Even churches as in the Leaders, give us there unbalanced intrepitation of the rules. Why, so that they can be in control. I kind some you old birds, because you accept yourself, and to me that is the starting point. To many of our SO's are not at that point, but they should still know about us.