Id vs Super-Ego

[Anthony Simon]

A few people here have said they want to think about the “why” of dressing up rather than the “how”. The trouble with this sort of thing, at least from my perspective, is that one person’s “why” is another person’s “you must be kidding” (or worse). Also I think
people tend to run a mile when I get as intellectual as I’m going to get here. This is a post which relates what I do (somewhat) to (some) psychoanalytic ideas (sound of numerous people clicking onto another topic).

I get the impression that a lot of people, not just here but across the (male) TG community, see the dressing as an expression of their “female side” and that pretty much explains to them what they do. To me that looks like a variant on Jung (or at least related to him) who says that everyone has an “anima”. I am not that familiar with Jung, but I
believe that the “anima” is more or less the feminine spirit in an individual, so that when you dress up you’re just giving your anima air. I know there has been at least one thread here with stuff on that.

The trouble is I am not a Jung person - He just doesn’t really work for me - But I do like Freud, as will be seen from what follows... My basic way into Crossdressing, though, is the power of the drive to dress up. I think just about all crossdressers experience that power at some point, even if the CDing becomes integrated into their life to such an extent that they no longer notice it (not me). It can roll straight over everything. There can’t be many more powerful drives around.

OK, to explain my basic conception, here’s a quote from Kierkegaard He talks about the possibility that:

“.. at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential....”

And then, dismisses the idea, and asserts his belief in God. Neverthless ideas like that underlie quite a lot of philosphical systems. Examples are Nietzsche, with his “will to power”; Schopenhauer, with his “will to live” - and Freud, with his “Id”. Freud’s Id is basically made up of all the desires, hopes, dreams and wishes people have - many of which are not acceptable to society and must be repressed (thus becoming “the
Unconscious”). But it’s also the thing that powers people’s lives Makes them go, or not. So, to be clear, I think of the "Id" as a wild ferment of all our wishes and dreams.

Freud has a concept that operates against the “Id” and attempts to keep it in check. This is the “Super-Ego”, which contains all the rules of acceptable behaviour that a person internalises - from society and from his parents - and attempts to enforce them. These gigantic, massively powerful, entities are in constant conflict in the psyche of an individual and, in Freud, there is a third entity, the “ego”, which attempts to balance their demands and live in the world with some sort of bearable (or better) life. It’s more or less equivalent to what people think of as their “self” or “personality”. It’s a much more fragile and small thing compared to the vast power of the Id and the Super-Ego - and, to me, this reminds me of how people feel in the face of the drive to dress up, small in the
face of an enormous drive.

As I’ve said before, intellectually I derive my CDing from a wish that I was a woman. Because I think of it as a wish that makes it a part of the “wild ferment” that is the Id and also gives an explanation of the immense power it has compared to the “me” that’s trying
to deal with it. Also the inordinate guilt I’ve experienced over the CDing in the past (like so many other people) would be the Super-Ego (representing the internalised mores of society) doing it’s thing, going “No, no, no..bad, evil, corrupt and etc.” Once more the
power of it, enough to overwhelm my poor personality, is in line with Freud (sorry this is so concentrated).

[Ralitsa]

I guess the basic problem that I have with most psychoanalysts like Freud and Jung, is that I feel they only get about 10% of it right.
No doubt the sub-concious drive that is a remant of pre-historic instinct drives much of our desire to dress, in the same way that it drives our sexual desires, appetite, and many basic functions. Freud, in my opinion, really got off on the sub-concious prehistoric motivations to the point where he tried to make everything fit his model, which is the most common error that everyone makes.
I think the idea that crossdressing is a representation of ones "female side" is a stereotype that firstly is not very accurate, and secondly can be counterproductive. In many cases it is true, in my case it is not true. It would be equivalent to saying that if a woman watches a baseball game she is getting in touch with her male side. It is ridiculous to suppose that is the case, when the more obvious reason would be that she likes to watch baseball. What does that even mean: "getting in touch with ones female side"? It doesn't even mean anything, it's just a lot of words strung together. The answer, "I do it because I like to" means more and is more accurate.
I don't mean to discount the feeling that many have of a certain longing to be a woman, or the feeling that one has many feminine traits. But, if one feels that they are more like a woman than a man, then it isn't crossdressing, it is in fact dressing consistent with the way one feels about themselves. If you wish that you were a woman, and derive your desire to dress as a woman from that wish, then it is perfectly understandable and I would say is not a contradiction.
The whole subject of guilt resulting from the feeling that you are transgressing the bounds set by society, I think say more about society than about you. To free yourself from the guilt you must free yourself from the belief that society has the right to pass judgement on this aspect of your life. Neitzche had some things to say about that, I think.

[Carolynn]

Freud, Jung and others of their ilk were late 19th century/early 20th century philosophers masquerading as scientists. Unfortunately, even as late as the final years of the 20th century and early 21st century, they were being taught as theoretical positions in various schools of psychiatric medicine and psychology departments. What that means is that a modern understanding of human mental processes, motivations and behavior has yet to be adequately formulated, so they should be considered irrelevant. Since that is all they have, that's what they fall back on to bolster their erudite reputations and support their phony baloney jobs.

Actually there is some truth to the notion that most of the underpinings of psychiatry, psychology and sociology are basically flawed from stemming from the very repressed late 19th century. Freud's notions were formed as a result of his being raised in the repression of late 19th century Germany, for example, and his simplistic view of the id, ego, superego, as explanation for the human mind is really quite primitive. .

Durkheim borrowed heavily from these Victorian and Edwardian desires to explain everything by being as general as possible in "founding" Sociology, and therefore made little headway in truly understanding social organizations other than in a simplistic, kneejerk fashion. His theories work in small scale situations to some degree since his studies concentrated on those, but could not nor cannot be extended to the larger societies and states of the 20th the century.

Human motivations are far more complex and involve chemical stimulation from our own biologys in our responses to physical, social, and psychological stimulii. People derive their often unpredictable behaviors from feedback loops that reflect some elements of Skinners theorlies, though not in the 1:1 correlations he would espouse. More people are recognizing this as more is learned, but due to the tradition of adhereing to one of the major "schools" in psychiatric teaching, few psych types have really made any advances beyond rattles and beads.

Dr. Milton Diamond is one of the people who has begun to try to expand the horizons of psychiatric theory, through recognizing that people are not some bags of mechanistic responses fitting neatly into the 19th century pigeon holes, but have chemistries that also affect responses, and that these change through-out the aging process.

IMHO

Carolynn

[Paula G]

I think the major problem with any of these theories is that they are by their very nature vast generalisations. Something I have learnt on this forum is how different we all are. The drive to dress may be a consistent for us all, however what causes the drive that manifests itself in our dressing varies. Indeed for me at least it has changed as I have aged. I think the idea of expressing the inner woman, or the female side is primarily a convenient short hand for "I like to dress in these clothes and it's far too complicated to try to understand". The other day a GG friend told me that I was so much more in touch with my female side than most men - she meant this as a compliment I thought "if only you knew".

I am convinced that there is an element of autoerotisicism (my spell check doesn't recognise the word but if that isn't an excepted term it should, and will be from now on) in my dressing, much less so now than when I was younger, but then that applies to all of my sexual drives and activities. There is the element of role playing, and also of escape from the self. Which part of the mind / personality these elements come from clearly is open to debate, the conflict, the guilt etc. comes from the society we grow up and live in. I believe that this pressure is external rather than some innate internal conflict as I see so many of us who once we accept this part of ourselves resolve the internal conflict.

[Anthony Simon]

I get the message.

[Absaroka]

Although much of what Freud and Jung postulated (id, Ego and so on, or the collective unconscious) is widely disputed, they got some things right. THe unconscious has a lot of power. Dreams mean something. A lot of our thinking is expressed in symbols.

For me CDing is an intrinsically heterosexual male thing to do. If I was a woman I would be disappointed that there really isn't such a thing as female CDing to the extent that there is for men. As Kate Bornstein pointed out, the biggest female impersonator currently is Madonna. Even women have to wear female clothes to do what we do.

I really liked the idea expressed in another thread that there is this inner ferment. I've often had the thought that if I could really access all the inner workings of my own mind I'd see some really bizarre things. Some of which I'm sure I'd rather not see....
Zari