Laundry, and the Art of Cross Dressing. Part 1

Just a little more than a month ago I was finishing up the weeks worth of laundry I created for myself at the Southern Comfort Conference.

The mental laundry has tumbling between my ears a little while longer. Today, dear friends, I will do a little fluff and fold of these pretty and static charged thoughts with you. It is a big pile, two loads at least. Let’s just take on one of them in this post.

You see, a week long skirt-a-palooza was big stuff for me, and for a number of reasons. On a visceral level, I had not been out en Femme through the too long, too hot Atlanta summer months. I therefore felt a great deal of anticipation for the first Frolic en Femme of the Autumn season.

Beyond that though, on a cerebral level, I truly wanted to see precisely what a more pronounced, prolonged immersion within my feminine surfaces might surface from within me. Complex stuff, yes, and while comprehension of the motivations that drive this splendid behavior is likely not to be completely seized, we must try. What would we be if we did not try?

Getting to “why” is important to me. My own personal delight in having a “why” for things runs counter to a deeply embedded hedonistic streak that I am possessed of, and which has largely served me well in life. This attitude can be succinctly summed up by saying “if it feels good, do it, provided it does not frighten the cows and sour the milk”.

The hedonist is kept partly in check by a ravenous analytical appetite. Like Mr. Spock from Star Trek, I am half Vulcan. Unlike Mr. Spock, my other half is Lt. Uhuru.

Back now, to the laundry of the mind, spinning on the question: “what is my motivation?”

I have, since giving Cross Dressing a wide berth in my life a couple of years ago, changed greatly. I will confess that there was an element of fetish, of forbidden thrill, of tactile excitement in my earlier experiments with wardrobe. This element is gone, long gone. Much else is gone with it. I no longer furtively under-dress, or sneak therapeutic moments of partial dressing in to my days. When I do dress, I go top-to-toe, and take it out on the road. Doing less does not seem to address any needs or desires. Moreover, I harbor no lesbian fantasies, have little interest in the company of men, and have absolutely no interest in congress with them. In some ways my conventionality borders on kinky. Perhaps then, we can reasonably eliminate sex as a motivator for my habit.

I have, since giving Cross Dressing a wide berth in my life (and since sharing that truth with my wife of 15+ years), listened closely for signals, kept my ears open for the Syren song sounding off the rocky shoals of Gender Re-assignment. I simply do not hear the call. At some level, I may be shutting off some sensors, daunting and disruptive as that trip would surely be. Perhaps, but I believe that I have been open minded and honest with myself on this matter.

Again. Just. Not. Feeling. It.

Perhaps then we can eliminate gender identity disorder from the mix. My birthly, earthly inheritances are sources of happiness and accomplishment for me. My advantages are considerable. I can not imagine not being the me that I am. Male. Shaken or stirred, with a twist perhaps, but yeah, a guy.

What then, dear friends, am I left with?

A thought has been coalescing around my uncertainty as to motive. It goes like so:

There is an element of Theatre, of Performance in this dressing. There is an audience, unwitting as they are, who get to see the show. I am capable of a good performance, of inhabiting a character convincingly, and staying on stage without being broomed off from the wings or shut down by a caustic review.

There is an element of Art, of Creativity in this dressing. There is bodily clay that is molded into new and attractive shapes. There is a frame draped in startling fabrics, a kinetic sculpture whose movements are changed, freed, constrained, and governed by dimensions of garments. There is my skin, a coarse canvas, smoothed, painted and beautified, an improvement on nature that I can see in a mirror and still feel surprised by.

There is something more. There is an element of exhibition, of sedition, of challenge to status quo in Cross Dressing. It may stem from some insecurity, a mad juvenile desire to be seen, noticed, to be paid mind to. In truth much of the friction of my younger years was borne of uncertainty about my value, insecurity about my place and progress in the world. There is abundant evidence in my more mature years though that this impulse has been largely stamped out, or corralled to a healthy degree. My present challenges to status quo seem better considered, more organic, and pretty well calculated for risk and effect.

I relish the risk of the Performance. I love the process of the Art. I am drawn to the challenge of the Status Quo. All of these things may be very important to me, and all very real contributors to my “why”.

It all requires a few more turns in the dryer before getting line dried here in Part Two tomorrow. I do hope to see you back here after a brief intermission.