I Sing the Female of Imagination
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction.
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapour.
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active…..
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
Walt Whitman – I Sing the Body Electric
I don’t buy the idea that most crossdressers are transsexuals in disguise but more often than not, ordinary males who conceptualize the feminine to such an extent, they lose their sense of reality. Thus the visualizations that engorge penises and the mental chemistry that usurps their rational thought, depersonalizes the female (perhaps even their wives and lovers) to an object of overwhelming emotional desire. As Whitman says: I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapour. The Crossdressers mind staggers with the thought of beauty and curve and in so doing, he soon becomes the slave to an all consuming irrationality of the female until in his hopeless quest to touch the softness of skin, the breast, the thigh and all aspect that are so intoxicating to him; compels him to BECOME the object of his desire and thus the bonfire of his own vanity.
My wife has an interesting theory which is for me, is a very plausible one regarding my own irrationality.
“Men tend to erotize women and the feminine mystic in their minds, even when married to the woman they love. This erotized woman of their desires, in many cases, leads to guilt and a sense of sinful betrayal and as a consequence, the objectified female remains hidden deep within their subconsciousness yet she demands to be released and become manifested in real life. But there is a problem! In the normal loving husband and father, this release cannot take place without breaking moral codes such as having an affair and thus the internalized woman of their dreams is found, by way of crossdressing, to legitimize the desired women of his imagination. The man than “becomes” the woman of his erotic quest! The women, in the reality she knows of herself, is lost to his fantasy of choice; the Goddess of his imagination and his Imitation of Reality.”
A lot of writings in search of an explanation for crossdressing, centralize on the sexual feelings of a man towards the female form. This, I feel, does nothing to explain why many of us had an interest in wearing clothes of the opposite sex at very early ages, well before we know anything about sex. M.
My wife was speaking and theorizing about her 65 year old husband of course.
As to your question about pre-sexual awareness? I too have the same thought. I explain it as environmental conditioning. No male figures to emulate, an absent father and a picture, found in an encyclopedia of Greek statue of the female form.( still have the books on my shelf)
I was completely overwhelmed at the age of ten in 1956 and lost forever after seeing it. Who really knows why all these “strangeness of mind” takes place? But I am thankful for my wife’s intelligence and loving understanding of her husband’s mind nonetheless.
Cheers.
Sounds right to me. When I first started reading about crossdressing on the internet at least 10 years ago or more, I seem to remember reading something about Freud explaining crossdressing in similar terms. Or maybe I’m off, I don’t remember it that well.