I suppose I was never the most social sort, and things got pretty rough around fifth grade (a particularity uppity school), so stumbling upon puberty just a few months later was not cool. Or more accurately, I stumbled upon dresses and satin skirts, I discovered self gratification , and I thought this "omg, this is fake sex, and this has got to be the best secret ever!" Unfortunately, I ended up (emotionally) hurting my sister in the process (not deliberately, of course) by ruining some of her stuff, so I caught some well-deserved flak for it. However, the message of not respecting property was sort of lost in my mom's anger and my shame, so I/we ended up avoiding the problem, which commenced (although great care was taken to favor not destroying cherished things, either by picking up older things, or avoiding making a mess of others) for quite a while. It wasn't for another five years (circa age 16) that I found basic resources on the Internet to even understand that self gratification was normal, much less the idea that "atypical" sexual behavior was rather typical.
Over this time, and a little later (when I finally gained the freedom to acquire my own stuff), I sort of battled to truly come to grips with the fact that just because I had these inclinations it doesn't mean I was gay, or that I was a woman deep down -- although being those things are fine, too. I always had some contempt for society's gender/class/race/etc roles, but seeing that these prejudices and stereotypes break down (in addition to enduring life experiences, taking college classes, and living through politics that, when carefully considered, also seemed to refute the legitimacy of the hierarchy) sort of helped drive home the point for me that our differences based on sex/gender, race, class, etc, and grossly-exaggerated by out culture. Our real identity arises from all our feelings, talents, and interests, and it's not up to the culture to fill in holes based on a few often trivial aspects.
That chapter sort of wrapped up a feel-good story for my life to date, but sort of as that "victory" settled from my mind, I still had not addressed my curious habit of dress-up. Sort of the quick answer would be to say I have a transvestic fetish (although by this point of my life, it was not impairing me on the self gratification front), but the existence of other habits I had picked up for self-pleasure seemed to run counter to it. Furthermore, the clothing I used seemed to actually facilitate orgasm primarily in a physical way: the fabric was soft/smooth, and/or the article provided a little bondage action, and/or some other quirk. Also, out of boredom/curiosity, I painted my nails, and that didn't provide anything sensual, but when I shaved my body hair (for the same reasons), it did provide me something; the latter sort of reminded me of the fuller pleasure I enjoyed when I just got started (11 year-olds don't tend to have particularly hairy legs, IIRC).
All of these things would seem to point towards (albeit a limited form of CD), but there's a couple things missing, and the most glaring one is that I hadn't given much thought to dressing up in public (I believe I had thought about it a bit, but other stresses seemed to trump it at the time and had to be resolved first). But this sort of thing had been growing on me the last few months, and I'm inclined to, now. Yet, my desires and goals don't quite fit the "classic" case (sort of the re-occurring theme of my life) of CD: I'm very interested in the dress-up, and I'm somewhat inclined to do things like paint nails and do things with my hair, but I'm not interested in using make-up or actually "fooling" anyone. I feel that I am persistently male (although not in society's idea of male). And my feeling towards doing so is not for arousal, but because it's how I feel I should be expressing myself (and the "metrosexual" thing is not the answer) -- the idea that clothing fits a particular gender just doesn't cohere in my mind anymore.
So, an accurate label or series of labels to describe this is the current thing I'm struggling with. That's and there's figuring out how the heck I'll express myself in dressing the ways I'd like while keeping the distractions and hurt to a minimum -- this seems particularly difficult in that I am not dressing to convince, so nearly every single person in the area who notices me will know something is up.
So, thank you for having me. I hope I'm in the right place.
(Kaelin is not my actual name. It's just one I've chosen for reasons that aren't particularly insightful.)
