liking male clothes more

[Absaroka]

Many of us have mentioned that the urge to cross dress waxes and wanes, not always with any apparent reason.

It was 7 or 8 years ago that I began to wear womens clothing in the privacy of my own home while working in my home office. This afforded me several hours a day to do this, except in the summer, when my family was home and it was too hot to wear much of anything anyway.

After a while I wanted to do more than stay home, or at least stay indoors. So I started going for moonlit walks in the woods while dressed and also doing yard work, and doing errands and stuff while partially dressed.

It didn't take long for me to find my own comfort clothes, mostly clothes I could go for walks in and that sort of thing. Casual skirts and tops. No makeup and my guy shoes because I wouldn't inflict heels on my feet and knees. No make up or beard removal.

This winter I've had lots of opportunities to dress. My wife is at work and with both kids away in college there are no longer worries about when do they get home from school. And I've gotten comfortable with taking walks in the neighborhood mostly dressed-just about everything except the skirt. I hold conversations with neighbors and they just don't notice.

This fall I'd get up out of bed and before I even walked down the driveway to get the paper I was dressed (my wife leaves for work VERY early) But more and more this feels like a chore. How much easier to just put on my guy clothes, lying there on the floor where I left them the night before, than to pick out my femme clothes, or even go get them if I picked them out the day before. And if I put on my guy clothes, how much easier just to leave them on and not bother changing. Even more to the point, I'll be wearing my femme clothes and get tired of them and put my guy clothes back on because they are more comfortable. Remember I'm not talking girdles and heels here.....

Here are some possible reasons. I'll start with the simplest.

I like the sensuality and comfort of girl clothes. The feeling of snug clothing hugging me and the movement of a slip over stockings. The feel of being embraced by a bra and the breeze in a skirt. But it's winter. My guy clothes, long johns, jeans, flannel and sweaters, are pretty comfortable and comforting also. Almost sensual in a mundane way.

Girl clothes feel exciting. But anymore that excitement feels like a distraction. I can forget my guy clothes are there. Who wants to do that with our girl clothes?

Here's another reason, one I referred to in another post. Like many, I started doing this as a chld of about 8. And always it was forbidden. It still is for me, as I am doing DADT with my wife and total stealth with the rest of the world. But I've done it A LOT. Maybe I finally just got comfortable with it and did it almost enough.

Baggage goes with clothes. A man in a dress is to many either predator or a slut. The same baggage that a woman considers when she considers her hemline and neckline, although these dynamics are less pleasant for us. Maybe I just got tired of having all that baggage in the back of my mind even though I strive for invisibility. Maybe male clothes as a ticket to male privilege is making it's way more into my feelings about clothing.

My wife will retire in a year, at which point opportunities to dress at home alone will change drastically. Maybe I'm sort of unconsciously preparing myself for that.

At one time my shrink said that the movement of CDing from the back burner where I did it once in a while (I worked out of my home alone for years and didn't dress) to the front burner where I did it a lot had to do with other issues in my life. I have a good idea what those issues would be, and it's too long to go into here. Suffice it to say that with my daughters away in college and a lot older and mature that the drama that 14 year old girls bring everywhere has faded.

I've had the desire to dress since I was 8 and I'm now in my late 50's. I doubt it will ever go away completely. But right now it's fading. Maybe it will come back. Who knows? More to the point, whether or not it returns does not seem very important.

All that stuff we write about the woman within never resonated with me. CDing for me was a quintessentially male thing.

Full disclosure. I'm in a skirt now. But it seems like a non event.....

Any thoughts?


Zari

[DonnaT]

All that stuff we write about the woman within never resonated with me. CDing for me was a quintessentially male thing.

Same here.

I had a Dr appointment/test yesterday afternoon, so stayed home from the office and brought work home. I figured that after the appointment I would change and finish my work enfemme, but I didn't feel the need, so didn't.

This morning, I got up, put on pantyhose in prep for the cold day, a long velvet prairie skit, and a sweater, added another paragraph to my report I thought of last night, had breakfast, then changed to drab, except for the hose, and went to work.

I'm almost always underdressed, which is usually enough most of the time, but there are often times I feel like wearing more. I don't see it as a chore, dressing enfemme, since it takes no more effort than dressing drab, especially since I don't wear makeup or a wig around the house.

I don't think I'd want the urge to wane and then return. I'd rather it either go away completely or remain as it is.

And, thinking about it, I do not like my male clothes more than the fem ones.

[Anthony Simon]

To me, it sounds like you're falling out of love with CDing, Zari. That'd be it. In terms of an "ache for the feminine" (which I have wound you upwith in the past), maybe your wife's presence at home in an ongoing way is going to be enough. But who knows really...

With me, I can be in the clothes and, quite suddenly I don't want to be. In general that's because (I feel) somehow I've done what I had to do in them. That might be thought through something, or it might be something more diffuse. Like there's a holding - or maybe a suspension - of my male self in there. And some process goes on then.

But I definitely need the image of myself as a woman to make it work. That would generally mean me getting made up and wig and padding and etc. And even if I don't do all that, I still need the memory of that in my head.

[Anita]

I like the image of myself as a woman out in the world, and the clothes don’t bother me, as long as I’m out doing things away from home. I don’t like lounging around at home in them, because they aren’t that comfortable for me. They used to distract me from what I was trying to do, if it was paperwork or the computer. And if I were going to do chores around the house with tools, I’d wear jeans and a t-shirt anyway.

I too like the ease of putting on male clothing. As much as I enjoy the female stuff, it’s time-consuming for me personally. Just putting on hose, which I still do, takes a good amount of time. I’ve got to be careful to roll them up so I can get them on, not rip them when putting them on, stretching them out to fit me, and so on. There’s times I just don’t want to go through all of that.

Also: in line with another recent thread, I don’t want to wonder if I’m ‘getting it right’ when I’m out there. When I’m dressed male, I know exactly what image I’m presenting. When I go out female, I don’t have the fine-tuning ability; it can be fuzzy around the edges.

[Anthony Simon]

Wearing a skirt being a non-event strikes me as quite interesting in that that's how I feel about wearing ordinary men's clothes - and how I strive to feel about wearing them. I want to be not bothered about them - in the sense that so many men out there (at least in London) seem to have this incredibly elevated idea of what the image they present when they dress up means - and I just think "so what?".

Per se, there's nothing more difficult in putting on a skirt rather than putting on trousers (I mean if you don't do other stuff). But I'm sure 99+% of men (including me) would be all too aware of the symbolism involved and this would make it into a decided event of some form or another. In a way it strikes me as kind of admirable that this is not the case with Zari.

When it comes to dressing up as a woman, there is this sense of some kind of image of a person I'm trying to get to, kind of get to the pure motherload (now, there's symbolic term) and then stay there in as intense a way as I can. There's a theory of sculpture (or poetry) that is a bit like this - where the artist is kind of chipping away at the rock to get down to the pure image within, like make his work of art out of that. I do love the whole process of that (when I do it and am not otherwise preoccupied).

It's quite a different thing from just functional dressing as a man (or to create a certain sort of male image in the world) - or indeed any sort of dressing for comfort around the home. It's definitely a kind of Holy Grail thing.

[Gillian]

Women have had the opportunity to enjoy the best of both worlds for quite awhile now. So why can't we get the best of both worlds? I love to wear my favorite football jersey and jeans, what I wear under these is for me to know! Clothes should be about comfort, what you want/desire, enjoyability, and nothing else.

[Absaroka]

Putting on a skirt seems like more work than putting on pants because I have to pick out a skirt, whereas the pants are usually the jeans lying on the floor next to the bed. One less thought is required. I suppose I could just always wear the same skirt as well, but somehow it's more fun to vary them.

There's probably a lot in that above paragraph about a great many things.......

Anita brought up the question of what do we wear while lounging around the house. I remember asking another member that once and they seemed uncomfortable with the question. I guess the question could be rephrased as what do we wear when the only function of our clothing is avoiding nudity. Which in the winter means to keep us warm, and in the summer means avoiding the discomfort of wearing nothing at all.

That's pretty much the times I dress, times when the clothing is only clothing. The times I dress are all times when, if the weather is warm enough I would probably wear nothing but underwear and gym shorts. Sometimes the underwear is panties, sometimes not. I suppose I could substitute a short skirt for the gym shorts, but a skirt without a top seems wierd.

Here's another thought. With the kids gone there is more isolation in my life. And so feeling more of an urge to be out and about pariticpating in the rest of the world, perhaps the desire to wear mens clothing is a way of letting myself feel that I'm letting the rest of the world get a bit closer.

Zari

[PhylissH]

Due to my circumstances I still wear my guy clothes. However if things were different I would dress 24/7. I have been dressing since Jr High, and still love to be in my fem attire. I have the opportunity now and then to dress for days at a time, such as this past week when I was able to dress everyday. If picking out an out fit and doing make up are chores they are chores that I enjoy, so to e they are not chores at all. Its all part of being a girl.

As the song says I enjoy being a GIRL

[Kittie]

I feel completely relaxed in women's clothes

[Absaroka]

Boy that song I enjoy being a girl brings back memories. The interesting thing is that it's not so much about feminimity as cultural assimilation, of being in America and enjoying the American idea of the role of women as opposed to the way things were done in the old country.

The play it's in (Flower Drum Song) came under fire for a while for being sort of a Chinese American minstrel show. But the book was a quintessential coming to America story writen by a Chinese American. It's just that Broadway had to ham it up a bit too much.

Interestingly today is a warm spring day (in January?????) and my girl clothes seem to have far more appeal now that I'm out and about in the yard.

[Anita]

Putting on a skirt seems like more work than putting on pants because I have to pick out a skirt, whereas the pants are usually the jeans lying on the floor next to the bed. One less thought is required. I suppose I could just always wear the same skirt as well, but somehow it's more fun to vary them.

I agree with the above--the boy clothes are always easy to access, and little thought has to go into them. But as I read your lines above, I see that the bigger reason is what I said in my post. I know exactly who I am in my boy clothes. I don't know (as well) who I am in my girl clothes. So throwing on comfortable clothes means comfort in both ways--the way they fit, and the way they make me feel.

It used to be more exciting to not know who I was as a girl--it was exploration. For whatever reason, that just doesn't seem enough motivation anymore. Maybe I've reached the point where any more exploration would mean transition, and I know that's not where I want to go at present.

[Absaroka]

Anita that puts the whole lyric of "I enjoy being a girl" in a different context. People use that line here and I usually take it as I enjoy doing the things that girls do, which is sort of what the song was saying-I enjoy doing the things girls do in America. But in the context of your post it's more like I enjoy being a person who sometimes is a girl.

I looked it up. Interestingly, I enjoy being a girl is sung by the character of Linda Low (interesting name right there, complete with Americanized spelling) who is a stripper in a nightclub. So there is a whole subtext of does she really enjoy this or is she being exploited, or both. And was this really the immigrant dream-come to America so your daughter can be a stripper?

And yes it certainly addresses this issue of female power as discussed elsewhere recently, or at least the male perspective of it.

Zari

[Ralitsa]

for me wearing a dress or skirt is as much a non-event as wearing guy clothes. I have a few very casual dresses that are easier than anything, quicker than pants and t-shirt and looks better. I can't say that I spend more or less time thinking about guy mode or gal mode, mostly it depends on what I will be doing and what I need to wear for it. If I'm going to be cutting firewood or something I'll wear jeans, old shirt and work boots. If I'm going out to dinner then I give it a lot more thought. That hasn't always been true, years ago I would have been willing to go to church in the same clothes I wore out to the barn, but my mother intervened.....
I do have a much larger selection of womens clothes than mens, so maybe picking out an outfit takes longer because of that. But I think it's not significantly more troublesome to wear a skirt and blouse than pants and shirt. But I do agree that one can feel like it is more important to spend the effort to look nice when wearing a skirt or dress. In guy mode one is not held to much of a standard.