Seven Deadly Cross Dressing Sins

Four of seven blog posts in this first month of our downy-fresh new decade have been chronicles of recent adventures en femme. Happy to share that sort of privileged fun with you, and a photo too when the lens does not fog or crack entirely, but do you know, this is not an editorial or creative direction that I want to run with.

Don’t get me wrong: I have had a blast of late. But the truth is that under normal circumstances there is simply no way I am going to get out as often as I have over the last couple of weeks. Life is damnably busy. More than that though, even if I wanted to be dolled up daily, had the means to swan about town at leisure, and had the time to describe it all in lush detail, I am not sure that I could make it interesting or valuable to you dear friends. Other content is required. It is time, therefore, to prospect, stake and mine a new Cross Dressing literary claim.

I quite accidentally stuck a stilettoed heel into a good rich seam of thought the other day when I found I was in a bother about not getting a great photo of myself taken. I was quite upset at a harmless little camera. I went so far as to recreate my outfit the day after, make-up and all, in the effort to set things right and appear in a good light. After getting the best shot I was capable of, after peeling off all the layers, after soaping off the face, I then spent time fussing over the many images. Dress not sitting flat here, eyes not right there. Legs look gimpy here, grimace on the face there, imperfect and grating in a thousand little ways.

I felt, at moments, that my efforts to take a great photo might be in vain, but it took a while for it to twig that the whole enterprise was actually an exercise of vanity.

Yes, Vanity. One of the Seven Deadly Sins, excessive pride in one's appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements, and etc. I did a quick mental inventory of moments of vanity I indulged in of late, and did not need too much reflection to realize I had at least one blog post at the ready.

I then put the rest of The Seven Deadly Sins in a spreadsheet column, and check marks where indicated beside them. Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Sloth, Wrath ... guilty as charged Your Honor!, with mitigating circumstances perhaps, but guilty no doubt.

I will reflect a little here today on Vanity. Perhaps there is a small series available in the rest of our Deadlies. With luck perhaps there will be a payoff, some lesson at the end of it all, or somewhere along the way. Join me sinners, won’t you?

Vanity

Care about ones appearance is good sense and good manners. Pride about ones reputation and capabilities will help one muster the nerve to endure and achieve. Good things yes, but when poured on too heavily, too often, very off-putting to people nearby. There does not seem to be a hard and fast line between the extremes. The virtues of prideful care for how you perceive yourself, and how the world perceives you can decay into vain vice before you know it.

I have always put a good amount of care and thought into my appearance. Clean, pressed, well coordinated, not surprising to people who know me and not alarming to people who do not. I have a signature look in guy life - not fussy or too concerned with the fashion of the moment. It is important to me that people remember what I said, not what I wore. I do not live in expectation of complements. I have pride, yes, but it does not morph into vanity.

Cross Dressing goes a little differently for me though. I am too out for complements, for notice, for validation that I do it well. I dress for it, and cannot get enough of it. I have received some very positive notice, and when it comes, it is intoxicating. There is an addictive quality to that intoxication, and it stings when you don't get a hit. I feel now that this buzz has become more important than it should be.

Wanting this external validation is at odds with how I roll normally, and it troubles me that a behavioral fissure is appearing between my “normal self” and the part-time persona you have come to know a little of here. Wanting the positive notice causes me to preen, and preening is neither gentlemanly or ladylike deportment. Ultimately, it is a set up for disappointment, and I most avowedly do not want to be disappointed either in myself, or in my dressing.

There is an opposite virtue that pairs up nicely with our featured vice: Humility. I think that I should try to pack a little more of that virtue when en femme. I think furthermore, that I am going to feature a little less chit chat here about the outfits, and what sort of notice they get in future posts about my rare and treasured adventures. I am not going to work at posting up snapshots either. You will have seen the look done better on others no doubt. The satisfaction I get from Cross Dressing should come from within, and not be dependant on the flattery of friends and the odd stranger.

Vanity is not pretty, and as much as I want to be pretty, I want less to be petty. The world will be a little more pretty and a little less petty if I focus more on all the nice things that I see, the nice people I meet , and less on what I think the world sees in me.

One sin down, six to go. Your thoughts most welcomed here….

A word about the illustration. Finding a series of pictures of depicting The Seven Deadly Sins in female form was a bit of icing on my creative cake. The artists name is Marta Dahlig. I know very little about her, other than that she has created a series of pictures that captures my attention fully. I will reach out to her in the hopes that she will not mind my use of her wonderful work here, and hope to present the rest of the series to you over time, and my muse allows.

Happy, vanity-free dressing, and everything else…