Semantics and self Inhibition

[Maverick]

My wife is uncomfortable with me wearing skirts !! A kilt what ever the colour or (femme pattern) no problem .A man wrap (straight skirt wrapping left to right) no problem .Steal anything from the wrong side of the Isle with a zip huuum people will think I'm a tranny .
Tom (kirbstone) once said of my pink Kilt ( to femme for me ) and yet Tom you happily wear tights (pantyhose) I would mentally struggle to go out even in my most traditional plad kilt with tights/stockings what ever the denier.
It just go'es to show that as we strive to find acceptability with both ourselves and our spouses and strangers the gentle path through the minefield will see us right -Or will it?

Regards Martin

[JohnH]

My attitude about the stupid "masculine anxiety" is "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

Personally I would rather be seen in a black or other masculine-color dress or skirt than to wear a pink kilt.

Also, if a woman wears a flannel shirt along with jeans is she a transvestite? Why is it accepted for women to wear traditionally masculine clothes but if a man wears anything that is remotely feminine he is regarded as a pervert?

Why is it a man who wants to wear feminine garments has to "pass" as a woman - even to the point of talking like a woman? It's also disgusting to me how these crossdressers adopt feminine names instead of using their real masculine names.

John

[Since1982]

Maverick, you can't worry about what people THINK! You'll be worrying the rest of your life. Remember, you only HAVE one life. Either enjoy it, or hide behind your worries. I'm overweight by 50 pounds, if I got all mentally messed up for every "Are you Scottish" or "Why are you wearing a skirt" or my FAV, You're too fat to wear a kilt!! I'd stay in my bedroom and stare out the blind slats. I don't care and I go wherever I please. If someone seems caring and just interested, I explain it to them and suggest they try a kilt to get the idea. Don't worry what others are thinking, I worried the first half of my life, but once I stopped caring I found my life was a lot more fun.

My #1 favorite odd comment is: Why are you wearing a skirt? My answer, because I like it, why don't you try one? The funniest retort I've ever gotten to that question was: I can wear whatever I like...to which I answered, So can I, Ma'am!

[pleated]

Why is it a man who wants to wear feminine garments has to "pass" as a woman - even to the point of talking like a woman? It's also disgusting to me how these crossdressers adopt feminine names instead of using their real masculine names.

John

Because most people have unquestioningly accepted the definition of particular clothing items as "feminine". It will take a lot of re-education to undo that. I think most men who fall into the "cross-dresser" category don't know any better and think that disguising themselves as a female is their only option if they want to wear a skirt.

[crfriend]

I think most men who fall into the "cross-dresser" category don't know any better and think that disguising themselves as a female is their only option if they want to wear a skirt.

This is precisely why SkirtCafe exists.

There are two discrete end-games here. One is the adoption of non-trouser rigs for guys as day-to-day out-and-about garments, and the other is trying to divine the "feminine side" or to role-play womanhood. The former is a matter of defying societal "norms" (which takes serious guts at first); the latter plays onto a slippery slope in which one ultimately must relinquish his masculine identity. This writer's thesis is that non-trouser rigs (be they robes, tunics, kilts, skirts, or togas -- what have you) are part and parcel of menswear throughout time and should be as applicable today as they were in yesteryear.

The foregoing should not be construed as slagging off on folks who are genuinely confused about who they are. My thrust is aimed directly at blokes who simply "want the option" of "shoving both legs down one pipe".

[BobM]

Maverick, you can't worry about what people THINK! You'll be worrying the rest of your life. Remember, you only HAVE one life. Either enjoy it, or hide behind your worries. I'm overweight by 50 pounds, if I got all mentally messed up for every "Are you Scottish" or "Why are you wearing a skirt" or my FAV, You're too fat to wear a kilt!! I'd stay in my bedroom and stare out the blind slats. I don't care and I go wherever I please. If someone seems caring and just interested, I explain it to them and suggest they try a kilt to get the idea. Don't worry what others are thinking, I worried the first half of my life, but once I stopped caring I found my life was a lot more fun.

My #1 favorite odd comment is: Why are you wearing a skirt? My answer, because I like it, why don't you try one? The funniest retort I've ever gotten to that question was: I can wear whatever I like...to which I answered, So can I, Ma'am!

Thanks, Skip, I think that that is the best approach. The male psyche can be a fragile thing, easily bruised. But I believe that if a man seriously considers the (so-called) arguments against men wearing skirts in the bright light of reason he will see that there neither is nor can be a logically supportable argument against it. If every man always conformed to "societal norms" there would never be innovation of any sort because that which is innovative is not, by definition, "normal".

[JohnH]

And I will go a step further. Hey, if a guy wants to wear lipstick, makeup, and heels along with his dress, he should be able to do so without trying to disguise himself as a woman just as a woman is able to wear a flannel shirt, jeans, and hiking boots without having to disguise herself as a man!

The male psyche can be a fragile thing, easily bruised.

And why is this so? it's because of the tripe boys had to endure when growing up such as "Be a man", "Boys don't do that", and "Boys can't wear that", which in my mind tends toward child abuse.

John

[pleated]

The male psyche can be a fragile thing, easily bruised.

And why is this so? it's because of the tripe boys had to endure when growing up such as "Be a man", "Boys don't do that", and "Boys can't wear that", which in my mind tends toward child abuse.

John

I agree 100%. Most men are suffering from a form of paranoia as a result of the conditioning they have received from early childhood.
Despite claims to the contrary boys and girls are treated differently from the very beginning. It is impossible even for their parents to avoid. For example take this example I witnessed a few weeks ago - I was in a large department store and passed through the floor where the children's department was. At one side of the cashier's counter there was the usual display of pink stuff with the sign above saying 'Baby Girl', and on the other side was the display with mostly blue, maybe a little green and other "cold" colours, the sign above this said 'Little Man'.

[JohnH]

I agree 100%. Most men are suffering from a form of paranoia as a result of the conditioning they have received from early childhood.

If you go to Crossdressers.com there you will see overwhelmingly a lot more men who either seek to look like women or becoming as women than women who want to become as men. I have decided to curtail my activity there since I don't feel like wading through all the insecurities of the members nor the way the vast majority of males have adopted female names.

Boys at one time wore dresses and Mary Jane shoes. Overwhelmingly they grew up to be normal men. Then some devils of persons decided to plant in parent's minds the "necessity" of boys "manning up". I know of one former member of SkirtCafe who changed his name to a feminine name completely different from his original name - such with a driver's license and is taking hormones and is planning to have SRS [sexual reassignment surgery] performed. He shared with me the way his father brow-beat him to get him to "man up" when he was a child.

[Since1982]

John h said: And I will go a step further. Hey, if a guy wants to wear lipstick, makeup, and heels along with his dress, he should be able to do so without trying to disguise himself as a woman

Yup, and the Internet has tons of sites for men or boys that want that, so far, this hasn't been one of them. Of course, I may be wrong.

[BobM]

Boys at one time wore dresses and Mary Jane shoes. Overwhelmingly they grew up to be normal men.

And not that long ago, either. I was raised mostly by my Victorian grandmother and was so adorned until about the age of 5 when I started school in 1952. It was rare in those days for sure, but I was not the only boy in the neighborhood so fortunate. I have a collection of 200+ pictures of boys/oung men in skirts, dresses, frocks, pinafores, and shoes of all kinds on my Webshots page: rtm1848. The historical period covers 18th, 19th, & 20th centuries. I also have a few shots from the 21st century.

[JohnH]

Boys at one time wore dresses and Mary Jane shoes. Overwhelmingly they grew up to be normal men.

And not that long ago, either. I was raised mostly by my Victorian grandmother and was so adorned until about the age of 5 when I started school in 1952. It was rare in those days for sure, but I was not the only boy in the neighborhood so fortunate. I have a collection of 200+ pictures of boys/oung men in skirts, dresses, frocks, pinafores, and shoes of all kinds on my Webshots page: rtm1848. The historical period covers 18th, 19th, & 20th centuries. I also have a few shots from the 21st century.

What you have needs to become common public knowledge. Also I will wager it was far more acceptable for adult men to wear the garments you mentioned, and it would not have been considered a perversion, just a little unconventional. Back then women were the ones oppressed and kept from wearing pants and other masculine garments. John D. Rockefeller Jr. wore dresses exclusively until he was 7 or 8 years of age, and his father was a strict Baptist.

What we need to avoid at all costs is the unfortunate backlash in Japan where "herbivorous" or "grass-eating" young men are so feminine they are not interested in forming relations with women and forming families and having childen. I have read if the low birthrate continues the Japanese may go extinct in around 3,000 A,D,

John

[BobM]

What you have needs to become common public knowledge. John

It it helps, all the pictures on my Webshots page are available for sharing/download. I own most of the originals, and the ones I don't are public domain (to the best of my knowledge). Since I posted the collection I have had well over 300,000 hits, so there is considerable interest.

[Ray]

John h said: And I will go a step further. Hey, if a guy wants to wear lipstick, makeup, and heels along with his dress, he should be able to do so without trying to disguise himself as a woman

Yup, and the Internet has tons of sites for men or boys that want that, so far, this hasn't been one of them. Of course, I may be wrong.

Tons of sites? Really? Which ones? I'm not sure that's the case. It strikes me that you have tons of crossdresser sites, but very few androgynous or fashion freedom sites. As John H stated, his desired clothing approach is incompatible with crossdressing sites as he wants to maintain male gender.

[Ray]

John H, Japan's reduction in population should not be a problem as long as it is gentle. In fact, it's an encouraging trend. The world needs to seriously shrink its population. A high consumption country like Japan can make a big difference in reducing consumption of resources and hence pollution.

I'll find out myself shortly. I'm off to Tokyo in 3 hours. Never been before. Quite excited!