The Seven Deadly Sins of Cross Dressing – Envy

Well friends, the first post in this series generated some interesting comments, and a couple of private notes from friends. Feedback from readers is really helpful, truly. Nobody writes well in a vacuum. Here is another thing about vacuums: they do not tidy up messy wrting. So allow me to tidy up the last post here quickly before wading into the briny green sea of Envy, our Deadly Sin de Jour.

I do not feel guilty of any "sins" relative to Cross Dressing. I am far too accomplished a lapsed Catholic to feel the burdens of sin. I will cop to a fashion crime here and there, yes, but no sins as such.

Good and bad things exist on continuums, and there are lots of grey shades between the extremes. I believe it is important to think, every now and then, about where on the important continuums (ed. continua?) you stand. Here, I am employing the traditional “7 Deadlies” as a triage kit for the exercise – not as a platform of self-recrimination. Plus I found those pretty Marta Dahlig pictures and feel compelled to merchandise them.

Be assured that I will not, ever, stop attempting to look my best, in guy mode and otherwise. To the extent that I can, I want to be attractive in appearance. Who doesn’t after all? Moreover, I will happily lap up the encouraging words that come my way, and try to remember to thank their bearers. I will not hesitate to take the odd photo and share it with you here. Poor a camera technician as I am, I can typically get a good picture quicker than a thousand good words.

I am just going to try to contain my focus on those things, and make sure that the Majorette at the front of my parade is not Vanity herself. I was drawn early to Cross Dressing, and enjoy it greatly today largely because it just feels right. If I keep Vanity in check, it will feel more right. If I do not, it might feel less right. That would be a bad outcome.

The defense rests. So there. Moving on now to Envy:

A feeling of covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc.

Hmmm. Envy has been a central motivator for me in my explorations, from the very beginning. I envied girls, and then women all of the private rituals of becoming womanly, the hooks and eyes, the fabrics and fragrances, the buckles and bows. the whole beguiling shooting works. I envied too, the impact that a confident, attractive women has, simply walking into a room, that special kind of notice that a guy cannot hope to have. Frailties and powers much different than the ones I could claim.

Envy for me, like Vanity, employed a looking glass, but rather than vainly gazing back at my own image, the looking glass revealed, Alice-like, a forbidden wonderland just out of reach.

Investigating the nature of Envy a little, I came across a Spanish proverb that I rather liked. The Spanish have my attention for starters, all those nice lacey scarves, flamenco skirts, and strappy heels, yumm, so this one hit home:

Envy is thin because it bites, but never eats.

Well I suffered bites for years, decades really. Now though, having come to peace with myself, and having shared my habit with Mrs. Bellejambes, I am able to eat, if you will. Envy has been disarmed, not entirely, but largely disarmed.

I still have periodic green flashes about the limits of my presentation en femme. I require long sleeves, skinny as my arms are, they are far too well defined and hair-thatched to enlist with the Little Black Dress Brigade. No plunging necklines either, my sorcery, my gal-chemy is not potent enough to summon up cleavage. Absent the cleavage, there is very little to take the focus off my jaw-line which demands too comprehensive a plastering of Dermablend Concealer to obscure imperfections of complexion, tell-tale shadows and what not. The end effect of the makeup is good, but the effect is visible, which moots part of the art of makeup. So the bites are there still, but they do not draw blood.

Envy extends, now and then, to brief flights of imagination, a periodic wish to pass fully through the looking glass, and live for brief interludes as an unquestionably and therefore unenvying member of the fair sorority. And then, to return on demand to my largely happy life in Drabistan. Envy is a relative trifle now, tamed, and more sweet than bitter.

It is pretty, and pretty tempting on the other side of the looking glass, but there is plenty of wonder in my more commonly occupied land, if I but manage to look at things fully. With that thought, here is a nice word from 19th century American philosopher/wag Josh Billings on the topic:

Love looks through a telescope: envy, through a microscope.

Here is to the bigger picture, friends.

2 “Sins” down, 5 to go, if I stay at it. I must tell you though, as much as I want to feature more of the beautiful work of Marta Dahlig I am not sure I will. Truth be told, my imagining of a nice series of essays has, shall we say, not tucked quite so smoothly as I had hoped. I am sensing unsightly bulges in the editorial fabric not quite becoming of a modest and earnest scribe. If I can smooth them out, I will continue, but I promise not to hurt either of us in the process.

There will be other things to ruminate on after all. Mrs. B and myself are taking an evening on the town together tomorrow night for example. I hope to learn a thing or two that can be discreetly shared with you here. Stay tuned.