As a youngster I remember being shy but don’t remember like many TVs do of wishing to dress in female clothes. I do however remember some vivid memories of female imagery. Manly from Miss World and glamorous Hollywood films watched on a Sunday afternoons with the advent of colour television, Marilyn Monrow, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, etc. the musical and dance films, Busby Berkley extravagances to name a few. I was about 13 in 1973 and one image in particular seems to be imprinted on my mind and I think has influenced my perception of femininity to this day. The Millionairess (1961); The scene of Epifina (Sophia Loren) standing in a wonderful black corset
The images in my mind I used to heighten and prolong the now loved exploration of my masculinity, were all focused on glamorous women in the media and the fashionably dressed local girls of my age that where objects of desire yet beyond reach.
One day during a long hot summer holiday I was round my friend’s house, bored with no pocket money left just killing time larking about. I needed to visit the loo. Now this particular friend had two older sisters and though I had used this family’s bathroom on many occasions before. This day I noticed hung over the bath row upon row of tan coloured tights and delicious knickers. Whilst behind the safety of that locked bathroom door I touched the items and on impulse quickly stuffed one pair of tights and a pair of the teenage knickers into my pocket.
That night in the privacy of my bed my journey started first by handling the two items of ultimate femininity quickly followed, in what seemed a natural progression., by slipping on the tights followed by the lacy knickers. Bingo!! Jack Pot!! I was hooked.
With my intense mental female imagery now being augmented by touch and vision of the closest thing this shy adolescent thought would ever get to a real girl. I now realise looking back from were I am now; I became my own girlfriend.
It was an easy way to gain experience of “girls” with out the prospect of rejection and became imbedded in my personality because of the repeated reinforcement through the happy pleasure hormones released in my brain. Once this neuro-network had developed I was always going to return to this way of being my ideal woman that would never say no.
Now back then in the early seventies as a shy pubescent I did not know what I was but knew instinctively best to keep this to my self, being still at school self preservation was paramount the fear of bullying and ridicule was enough to ensure my now developing dressing stayed privet and in the closet.
So what was I? I had no concept at that age of homosexuality let alone bisexuality. I just was a horny teenage boy that thought about girls and women all the time.
This adoration of women has developed over the years into my transvestism. During my late teens the shyness was over come on a few occasions resulting in a couple of girlfriends. One wonderful girl turned out to be the love of my life we married and were blessed with two daughters. All through my daughters upbringing I dressed when I could, alone when it was safe to do so. The fear of being discovered and losing everyone close to me drove me into long troughs of intense guilt leading to snatched peaks of happiness being dressed for a while. Now I must clarify that this turmoil was kept out of my generally happy life by adopting a stratagem of separating the two incompatible sides of who I was.
On the one side was the truly content, loving husband and father doing his best for his family as provider, protector, trouble-shooter and fixer. Whilst on the other was this other side of my persona, that was so much apart of me that no matter how much I tried to deny its hold on me was always a happy place for me to visit.
Oh how I tried to deny my need to dress, the guilt experienced after the high of self-expression would be a low so degrading that vows would be mentally taken never to dress again, secret stashes of clothes, make up, shoes, lingerie etc. would be dumped. Great sighs of relief would be sighed, new beginnings begun. Only to resurface as a desire or craving that if ignored led to frustration, moodiness and generally making me irritable short tempered, not nice to be around. This cloud was immediately lifted after some time pampering and preening and succumbing to the feminine side,
So my transvestism has developed over time to be were I am now. The first steps were accepting that 1. I was who I was, 2. I liked what I liked, 3. I deserved to be whom I liked. Sure sounds easy when you say it quick; still did not help with the guilt. Realisation set in that to free my self from the guilt I had to try and gain some understanding and hopefully some degree of acceptance from my wife. Big gamble this one. I would only recommend this if your confident your relationship will stand the shock. Because shock it will be.
So how did I go about letting my wife in on this part of my life? I tried big hints; I tried leaving clues, tell-tell signs. Not very clever! Went without comment. Next tried allowing myself to be caught dressed. Not very clever! So stressful I backed out loads of times. Finally went through with it though, my wife walked in stared in disbelief turned round left and cried her eyes out in the next room. So cat out the bag and amongst the pigeons, quick change and sheepishly apologizing, promising never to “do it” again the cat was put back in the bag. Still not very clever.
Several years passed dressing in the closet now wracked with even more guilt as I had promised never to dress again. (Tip. Never promise, that you will never dress again as you will not be able to keep the promise). I thought that was that until the human race developed cheep PC’s and the Internet. Once I was on line I could see I was not alone in my feelings there were many transvestites just like me. After surfing the www I found www.ladylike.org.uk and I hoped it would help my wife understand. I asked her via a text message if she would kindly look at the site and let me know what she thought.
to be continued.............................
