Really Good Paper --

[JRMILLER]

Hi,
This is a really good paper and goes a very long way to explain why some men where women's clothing. It is one of the best explanations I believe I have ever seen.

Now, I will warn you, he uses terms like "cross-dressing" and "transvestism" and I know none of us here consider ourselves as such. However, there are grains of truth in this article that may apply to our skirt interests as well. This depends entirely on the individual. So, use your own judgment as to whether or not you read it. Also, it's very long and to really absorb it may take 1/2 hour.

The portion that I find very illuminating is his discussion about authoritarian personalities which for the most part is "not us", but could be largely explain why we react the way we do and dress the way we do. Again, this depends on you and your particular situation.

OK, last warning -- if you are offended by such discussions, don't click this link. I don't want to hear about it, you have been sufficiently warned!

http://www.gender.org.uk/derby/mon1.htm

[crfriend]

Yes, John, that was a good read, but I remain offended -- deeply so -- by the psychiatric profession's dogma that simply because a man puts something other than trousers on his lower half there must be some deep underlying psychological injury or disease that "needs fixing".

Even Freud finally had to admit that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". The lopsided dogma that "only men can crossdress", and that it's a sign of illness, has just got to be put to rest; it makes matters worse, not better. To give credit its due, the author of the paper obliquely addresses that, but does not come straight out and give the notion the righteous smiting that it requires. However, that is going to require fresh thinking and new insights: we are not going to abolish the idea by rehashing ad infinitum what appears in the professional and pseudo-scientific literature.

Put somewhat coarsely, I'm not terribly hopeful on this count. I suspect that it's going to be a very long time before the dogma changes. After all, how long did it take before the Roman Catholic Church "revised its opinion" on Galileo's discoveries and writings (to my knowledge, they have yet to fully recant and say, "We got it wrong.")? Some things move at a pace that makes "glacial" seem speedy.

[Brandy]

Or to put it another way it is a 10 year old paper, based on a 18 year old research paper, based on 20+ year old research, based on a group that are very lightly represented on this forum.

The group of people this forum represents basicly did not exist at the time the research for the source paper was done. The people may have existed but were told their feelings were wrong and did not matter.

To paraphrase the obvious sometimes a man in a skirt, is just a man in a skirt.

-- Brandy

[Since1982]

Carl quoted: The lopsided dogma that "only men can crossdress", and that it's a sign of illness, has just got to be put to rest

I'm completely with Carl on that.

However, I have a deep underlying psychological disease that "needs fixing". It's being INCENSED about fools that think a man in a skirt is anything other than a VERY COMFORTABLE man. So THERE!

[Mugs-n-such]

I like all of the above replies, and I might add, the fact that the article quoted Money (if he's the same one I'm thinking of) if you want to know more about Money (John Money, is it?) then read a book called "As Nature Made Him", about twin boys and because of an accident one was raised as a girl. It tells about Money in that book, and I tell you, the tale is not flattering at all, at all.

[Since1982]

Too many parents in this world start off with the intrinsically w r o n g idea that because HE and SHE got together and MADE a baby, that gives them the right to do whatever they please with it after birth.

My own story is similar. My mom, a devout Christian, wanted a baby girl. My dad's blood type was A+, my mom's blood type was ORH-. These types are completely non-compatible and no babies should be attempted with this "match". Prior to 1930 absolutely NO babies from that match lived past birth. My dad, who was 18 at their first try, and my mom who was 15 did it and she delivered a dead female fetus at 7 months. They tried again, another dead female fetus at 8 months. And again, this time a male fetus born dead at 9 months, hard core those 2 were. They WANTED a baby period. After 6 mo. of rest, they did it again and delivered a live baby girl who lived to age 3 and an massive blood clot blew up in her heart and she died. They tried again, another dead birth at 7 mo. and in 1935 they had another one that lived for 6 years and an aneurysm in the brain took her. I was born in 1941 and she needed an operation to deliver me, I was sideways in the canal, 2 pounds, blue and born dead. I have a very clear memory of being tossed onto a stainless steel sink covered with blood and all blue. I saw that from above, like at the ceiling looking down. I saw a man scream and all the doctors and nurses came back and the next thing I remember is being in my MOM's arms.

I was born with a heart murmur, had mumps, measles, pneumonia, and every childhood disease around at that time including Polio by the time I was 6. My parents were on some type of welfare at that time so they had at least 50 pounds of baby clothing all of ages up to age 6.

I didnt know what trousers were until I was 8 years old and started outgrowing all the "hand me downs". I hated them then, I hate them now. Unfortunately, life and social mores kept me in them for 40 years. Thank the powers that be for a movie in the South Pacific in 1972 and a people that wore sarongs all the time. I was in the movie and wore a sarong nearly all the time I was there. 3 months total.