I might think sexual gratification, but I really can’t imagine this being sustained over long periods of time as the only reason to wear women’s clothing. Also, from my observations as a male observing the way women dress, many of the fancy dress-heels-stocking + makup outfits that transvestities like to wear seem like a huge PITA to deal with.
Why go through all the hassle? If it’s not a fundamental sexual identity thing in that supposedly most transvestites are solidly heterosexual, what is the deep appeal of wearing women’s clothes for extended periods of time?
I guess I didn’t get the memo. The last time I checked “transvestite” was a perfectly acceptable descriptive word for men who like to wear women’s clothing. Is it now considered an epithet or derogatory?
So what is the “deep appeal” of women who wear articles of mens clothing?
Actually, the term: transvestite, or crossdresser, is not specific to men. It literally means “cross” “dress”.
It is either sex who dresses in the clothing of the opposite sex.
The degree of crossdressing, or the motivation of why either sex wears the clothing of the other sex, has nothing to do with and does not change the fact that the person of any sex is a transvestite if he/she wears the clothhing of the other.
The “extent” of crossdressing, i.e. if just one type of article of clothing was worn, it might/could just be convenience in the case of women wearing mens clothes, or a fetish in the case of men wearing womens clothes.
On the other hand, if a woman dressed completely as a man and tried to pass as a man, or a man dressed completely as a woman and tried to pass as a woman, then another term other than “transvestite” would be a better term.
I think if you defined the term in your question better, the answer might become apparent. If you are really referring to “transgendered people”, the numbers of men and women are about equal, and neither one considers it a “hassle” to wear the type of clothes that they want to wear.
(Same thing with the term: homosexual, that term is not limited to meaning just men who want same sex. Lesbians are “homosexual”)
Point taken re clarification. I am specifically not talking about transgendered/ing men to women. I am supposing that mentally and operationally they are, for all intents and purposes, women.
I am referring to heterosexual men who dress in women’s clothing for extended periods of time. Per the OP I am assuming (possibly incorrectly) that it is difficult to sustain a state of sexual fetish excitement all day long, and at some point a heterosexual cross dresser is simply going to be a heterosexual man wearing womens clothes going about his workaday life.
It is this part that I am interested in. What makes a heterosexual man want to dress in women’s clothes as a part of everyday life?
Point taken re clarification. I am specifically not talking about transgendered/ing men to women. I am supposing that mentally and operationally they are, for all intents and purposes, women.
I am referring to heterosexual men who dress in women’s clothing for extended periods of time. Per the OP I am assuming (possibly incorrectly) that it is difficult to sustain a state of sexual fetish excitement all day long, and at some point a heterosexual cross dresser is simply going to be a heterosexual man wearing womens clothes going about his workaday life.
It is this part that I am interested in. What makes a heterosexual man want to dress in women’s clothes as a part of everyday life?
People who “just” wear clothes of the opposite sex, with no other reason, are not transexuals, nor transgendered, nor fetsihists. They are not women who think they are men, nor men who “think” they are women. They are not saying that they have the wrong bodies.
Those people are either wanting a style not available in their department store under their sex label, or they can be simply people who “prefer to live as the opposite sex”, not uncommon. They know they are males but prefer to live as women, or women who know they are women but prefer to live as men - for whatever benefits they want as the opposite sex that they cannot get without crossdressing.
Eg. Clamity Jane of the 1800’s knew she was a woman but wanted to live and dress as a man because of the benefits and freedoms that men had and that mens clothes had over women at the time.
Also, as far as men, a man today who crossdresses as a woman may want to enjoy certain priveleges that only women get, or may want to wear softer clothing/fabrics and with prettier colors and lace and bows and skirts that are not currently available in mens clothes.
Some “people”(male or female) like soft pretty fabrics with doodads on them, and some(male and female) dont. Doesnt matter what sex you are. Plenty of women dont like frills and dont wear them, some men like frills and do wear them.
You are not going to find a woman who does not like skirts, bows, frills, lace, etc wearing a dress, she will wear tshirts, sweats, and jeans. A man who does like those frilly things will wear them(they just happen to be only available in "womens departments at the current time). If a woman does not find what she wants at the womens department, she goes to the mens department. If a man does not find what he wants at the mens department, he goes to the womans department. Pretty simple really.
What you are asking is NOT related to a fetish, a transgender, or a sexual stimulant factor. It is just a personal taste in clothing of those people. No more, no less.
I think you are trying to read too much into the practice of “cross dressing”!!! You are making a more difficult question of it.
No great mystery to me, nor a big deal.
Females in sweats and boots or men in skirts dont bother me one way or the other.
My experience and knowledge of this is limited (so I’m glad that this is in IMHO and not GQ).
When one of my co-workers transitioned to a woman, I did some brief research to be better informed. The one thing that has stuck with me is this: our sexual/gender identity is defined by three axes. There is what gender we perceive ourself to be, the gender we are attracted to and the gender we wish to present ourselves as.
Most people are fairly fixed on the first two, and slide around a little on the last one. It covers women who dress up to out on a date but wear ‘drab’ i.e. gender-neutral clothes to do chores and men who wear leather to be more ‘macho’.
So a cross-dresser is someone who wishes to present as a different gender but does not perceive themselves as that gender. It is not a ‘sexual’ thing but a ‘gender’ thing.
I believe there is some sociological research, based on interviews with cross-dressing males / transvestites, verifying that for many of them there is a directly erotic payoff for doing so, i.e., matches the conventional definition of a “fetish”. As far as it “working” over a protracted period of time, think of guys with pinups taped to their walls, or who get a thrill out of having female coworkers dressed in short skirts etc.
As far as I know, there is no similar literature concerning females getting the same kind of kick out of wearing “male clothing”.
Well, I can offer a tiny bit of personal info here. My mom married a guy when I was in 6th grade, and two years later, he confessed to her that he could only enjoy sex if he was dressed in women’s clothing while doing it.
To my knowledge, he never went out in drag, and certainly didn’t wear it around the house. We would never have known, had I not snooped through the annulment papers (based on fraud).
Because of her description of the conversation (many years later), I can only assume that his desire to cross-dress was pure fetish.
Nope. No way. If it were simply a matter of “personal taste in clothing,” there wouldn’t be cruises specially arranged for heterosexual men who cross-dress, those men wouldn’t use women’s names when they dress (and many do), they wouldn’t prefer to wear women’s clothing when they have sex (and many do), they probably wouldn’t wear makeup, and there wouldn’t be clubs and other social organizations where men could show up in women’s clothes, socialize with each other, use their “dress up” names, and generally pretend to be girls.
It just being a matter of taste doesn’t even begin to explain the phenomenon.
Why does it offend me that “sweats and boots” and dressing ‘down’ i.e.: more comfortable when doing chores, is somehow dressing like a man? I would think only Pentecostals and such would think of pants as strictly men’s clothes. It offends me but I cant put my finger on why.
I didn’t mean that women wearing pants is dressing like a man, but that they are not presenting strongly as women. I’m all for comfortable, appropriate clothes for tasks. I was just trying to illustrate that what we wear effects people’s impressions of our gender identity.
See this glossary for some more information. FTR, drab is wearing clothes of your born gender. The things I learn.
Well, I have worn a skirt on occasion, and would do so from time to time in the hot weather if it weren’t for the social fact that I’m making a political spectacle of myself every time I do it.
Youl could make a point for declaring a bra to be literally “female apparel”, but a skirt isn’t inherently gendered. Nor (as MDM. President alludes) are a pair of pants. They only have gender connotations because people insist on applying them (and mostly they don’t any more with pants).
I don’t get off on it. I just think skirts are cool.
Since this is IMHO, I have read on more than one occasion, but have no idea where to find a cite, that often part of the pleasure for a man dressing as a woman is to feel in a softer, more dependent, less dominant mood. In other words, after a long day as an alpha male, it is a pleasure to be pretty and frilly and decorative.
This makes a certain amount of intuitive sense to me, but it also strikes me as having very little to do with my actual experience as a woman. In other words, as a woman getting all dressed up is usually a fairly unpleasant, competitive, even self-loathing experience where I am trying to fit a pre-conceived mold of what I should look like. But I can see why for a man who only does it part time when the mood strikes him, it could be relaxing.
I actually went through a stage when I was single and had no car when I seriously considered dressing as a man. I just thought it would be very relaxing to be able to wait for the bus, walk to the store, etc. without being checked out or considered as much of a vulnerable target.
Hmm, sounds like I have issues, but I’m mostly over them now. (grin)