Hi there peoples! My name is Prudence (not my real name), I'm 51 years old and I live in Newcastle, Australia. I've lived in Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide also for other Aussies out there.
It feels really good to have a place to tell my story (stories?) and be totally 100% honest without fearing consequences or inevitable judgement. I'm so glad I found Susan's Place. I'm conscious in contemporary society one can put one's foot in it easily without any intent, however I feel like I'd like to tell my story in my words and be guided by the sensibilities of any readers, hoping they first accept where I am coming from and appreciate my intent.
Backstory
A brief backstory about me, where I come from, where I am at and where I might want to go in the future. I was lucky enough to have a friend in high school when I lived in Adelaide who I got to know quite well. He was smart and sociable and we got on well. So when we were 16 and he talked to me about being gay, what that meant to him and some of the thoughts and feelings he had, I learned a little about his experience at an age where I had few prejudices and was quite open to understanding his experience. Since that time I have had a couple of other gay friends and through these friendships formed an understanding about the nature of sexuality. That is, people of all different types seem to me to be fundamentally the same in their thoughts, feelings, wants and fears. I'd consider myself a fairly open and non-judgemental person when it comes to gender or sexuality.
Sexuality
Through my life I would have considered myself exclusively heterosexual until after I got married (the first time) in my mid twenties. This was a time in my life when I felt more settled and safer. I then wanted to explore my own thoughts, feelings and sexuality. At this time I became interested in BDSM, tattoos, piercing, role playing, sex toys and related ideas. Unfortunately my wife (at the time) was not open to any of those ideas. She was Catholic and came from a large and fairly conformist family and my ideas were met by her with fear and loathing. Suffice to say a few years later I felt growing resentment and began to rebel against feeling controlled and restricted within my married relationship. Then I met a young lady at my workplace who was very open indeed to all these ideas. While my marriage lingered on a little longer, I began to spend more time and energy exploring my emerging sexuality with my new partner.
As part of this exploration I discovered I was aroused by gay porn or literature: that is men having sex with men. Initially this thought was confronting and I experienced fear and uncertainty. However when my new partner and I began to explore threesomes I found I much preferred to include another man in the mix over another woman. This presented my first experiences in having sex with a man which I enjoyed. My partner (at the time) was very supportive of this exploration. In fact she found it a big turnon to watch me having sex with other people and in particular other men. I, in turn, found out all about what women always say: men are not very communicative and tend to turn up, ->-bleeped-<- and leave! Not a fulfilling emotional experience for me, at least. These experiences and thoughts got me to a point where I felt comfortable with my sexuality. I don't think labels are that useful but if I were to try I'd call myself bisexual.
Cross Dressing
In regards to cross dressing, I had always liked the idea of costume parties and I inevitably wanted to dress as a woman. I never thought twice about it, simply thought was was part of my extroverted and show pony/showoff nature. However as part of my exploration I began to dabble with cross dressing in a sexual context. Together with my partner, I bought some female clothes, latex lingerie, breast forms, bras and panties and bought a latex gaff. Unfortunately this was the early 90s so information was not as easy to come across. I gave up on the gaff after figuring the XDs (cross dressers) who successfully used them either had supernatural powers or really small genitals. The whole tucking concept sailed right above my head. I took some photos with my partner and we role played a bit and then I started shaving or clipping off my body hair and had my eyebrows professionally waxed and shaped. I dabbled with a bit of makeup here and there too. That didn't seem like a big deal to me, maybe partly because I went to high school from 1979 to 1984 which was luckily the most bestest time evar i.e. the New Wave and the time of the new romantics; that is blokes wearing makeup and flouncing around in filly clothes.
The light bulb moment was when my partner who was quite into photography, started taking more photos of me en femme as a bit of a laugh. She then said "actually you look quite pretty as a girl". I thought "really?". Then we posted a few of those photos on our couples profile in an online dating website. Lo and behold our inbox started getting a steady tide of messages from "straight" blokes who wanted to know more about me in my "en femme" state. After a few giggles and merriment we realised there was something going on here.
Submissive Fetishes
Now being in the mid 2000s I got married again and had a son and a daughter with a new partner. But I still had my continuing play-partner and I kept those two worlds totally separate. With my play partner I could be myself totally; be open and honest about my sexuality and things I wanted to explore. With my wife and mother of my two children, I was anything but. I hid any of those things from her, partly because she made it clear she was tolerant of my "fetishes" to a degree, but certainly did not have any interest in them herself. Think Lady Mary Crawley in Downton Abbey but without Mr Pamuk.
During these years I spent a lot of time and energy self-reflecting on my thoughts and feelings, and made a conscious effort to explore my own sexuality with courage and determination. I tried not to let my fears deter me from finding out who I really am and what really turns me on (and why). Its probably obvious I am a Scorpio at this point! While my first ten years of BDSM play had me taking the dominant role almost exclusively and without any thought or consideration, I began to think about "switching" and trying the submissive side just to try everything out at least once. To my surprise and equally to my play-partner's surprise, I found it was a big turnon for me. And with years of BDSM experience behind her, she found she was ready to take on the challenge of being dominant and get something out of that, too. This fundamentally changed the nature of my MSM (having sex with other men) experiences and, in turn, my interest in cross dressing and gender bending. More and more I was turned on by the concept of myself being the passive partner with another guy.
Genderbending
I mentioned at the beginning that I am 51 years old however I am regularly mistaken for a lot younger than that. I am luckily blessed with a metric ->-bleeped-<-tonne of hair and have had long hair since the 90s. Currently my hair is down to bra strap length (way past my shoulders). I have both ears pierced and my eyebrows are always shaped and tinted, along with my eyelash tint. I regularly rock nail polish (usually red) and wear feminine jewellery (like bracelets, necklaces, etc). I guess what I am getting at is that I present a fairly feminine look for a guy in contemporary society. About once a week a waiter or sales person or the like will approach my current partner and I and say "hello ladies!" only to look as if they've swallowed poison when they clock that I am a man! This doesn't bother me one little bit but embarrasses them a lot, which tells you how our society views mistaking a man for a woman. I wonder if the other way around would be the same? Given that I am 181 cms tall (5'11") then there must be some tall chicks out there holding hands with a busty blonde.
I've had about 30 laser hair removal sessions over every square inch of my body other than my eyebrows/eyelashes and head hair. I don't grow hair anywhere other than the hormonal parts now (anus/scrotum), which I suppress with monthly laser hair removal. For my face I've done the same and 99% of my beard is suppressed totally with monthly laser hair removal. However the six million grey whiskers that grow out of my chin aren't zapped by laser hair removal, so I'm working on that with electrolysis. Ouch.
A few years ago I decided that I was living my life in denial and repression, not to mention screwing everything that moved. I decided to divorce my second wife and severed all relationships and spent a year alone to work out what I wanted to do. After a year I met my current partner and right from the start I was upfront about things. I revealed my past behaviours, including the multiple infidelities, and explained I was seeking a monogamous partnership with someone who loves me for who I am. I was wearing red nail polish the first time I met her! She is supportive of my interests in makeup and in general wearing feminine clothes and accessories. After about six months I talked to her about my interests in cross dressing and after a few days of questions and insecurities she has been supportive since.
The Here and Now
So where am I at right now? I made big changes in my life a few years ago and decided to pursue a monogamous lifestyle based on honesty and intimacy. And I've come a long way down that path. However I'm now faced with some challenges. My interests in cross dressing have grown over the past year or so. While my partner is supportive of me experimenting with clothes, shoes and makeup, she is not open at all to me having any kind of relationship with anyone else. And since that's exactly in line with what I told her I wanted when we met, that's fair enough. I'd describe myself as predominantly a straight guy, but sometimes I'm attracted to men sexually and sometimes I like to cross dress. And sometimes I'd like to cross dress and have sex with men. That's kinda not in line with being monogamous.
I've had an open relationship in the past and that did work quite well, however my play-partner and I never lived together. Given that the vast majority of our lives is the boring teeth-brushing, eating, sleeping, working, studying, watching TV kinda existence, there is a strong argument that this sort of harmonious relationship is the most important consideration. We all need to be loved for who we are and live with someone who we get along with pretty well most of the time. But at the same time there is that 1% of our lives where we need to explore and express our sexuality and although it is only 1% by time duration, it holds an important part of our thinking and decision-making. When I'm horny it sure seems like it's important to me!
So I have to carefully think though what I want and what the effects of pursuing that exploration would be in my relationship, along with strategies to be open and honest or attempt to (one again) live a double life. Something I decided in the past did not make me happy.
Another challenge is my growing interest in feminisation of my body, through surgeries and/or hormone treatments. I'm interested in the idea of liposculpture for a Brazilian butt-lift and hip augmentation to achieve a feminine shape. Right now I'm quite tubby compared to usual (I prefer to be say 70-73 kgs and I'm about 95 kgs now) which means I've got plenty of body fat that is required for those lipo surgeries. The facial feminisation surgeries also appeal to me - well the outcomes do. The process makes me nauseous. The MTF hormones also interests me but I need to know a whole lot more before I would feel comfortable in approaching the medical industrial complex for advice.
Here's where I try to explain the mass of whirling ideas and concepts about what I might want and why and risk being judged or shot down. Or maybe understood and supported! Anyway I've never lacked courage so here goes.
I love the idea of being able to "pass" as a woman in public, with makeup and feminine clothing. When I so choose. BUT I want to be able to continue to pass as a man too when it suits me (most of the time). I don't hate being a man, being born male or having a penis and testicles, etc. I can absolutely do without body hair or a beard. My natural body shape is quite slim and my chest and arms have always been slim. I worked really hard at the gym with weight training for about three years a decade ago and got a lot stronger but built an apparent ZERO increase in muscle bulk. My body just doesn't seem to work that way. I've never considered myself to be a strong person and so losing upper body strength doesn't bother me much. You can't miss what you've never had.
If I had more available money I'd be very interested in the FFS and lipo. I've mentioned to my partner that I'd like to get a BBL given I have a typical men's flat bottom ("no bum"). I'd also be interested in some parts of the MTF cross hormone treatments. I don't feel like I need anti-androgen drugs to suppress Test because I don't have any body hair anyway and anything that makes me less horny is not a good thing! But estradiol treatments to redistribute fat to a more feminine shape would be desirable. Shrinking testicles doesn't bother me or a shrinkage in my penis. But I would not like to experience a loss of libido or inability to orgasm.
Wow that's a lot of raving on isn't it? I'm not sure how this will be received but I feel like it's a good idea to express myself and open myself up for learning and consideration of other people's ideas who may share some of my thoughts and feelings.
Thanks for reading about me and I would welcome any feedback, thoughts, ideas or other response.
