74.

Several subscribers to this magazine are in their 60s and beyond--a period of life when sexually motivated activities are generally on the wane or gone. Yet because TVism is basically an aesthetic satisfaction its enjoyment continues.

The foregoing has outlined my conceptions of the basic factors in what is called Transvestism, but now I would like to take up the word itself. Used in the proper way it is a perfectly good word, being only the latin roots of the Eng- lish words cross-dressing. For the purpose of describing an activity it is convenient since it says what someone DOES, but since this activity can be practiced under a variety of conditions and for a number of purposes, the word Transvest- ise DOES NOT describe what someone IS. An attempt is some- times made, as in this article, to modify the term by refer- ring to a TRUE transvestite, but this makes no sense either. What is a TRUE CROSS DRESSER? Anybody who cross dresses re- 6 rdless of the motivation or the satisfaction is Trans- vesting, and if he did it frequently he could be termed a transvestite--one who cross dresses. But using words this way serves to confuse and obscure the purpose of having des- criptive words in the first place. If we wish to classify people in terms of their behaviour problems so that when we use a term in conversation it will mean the same to the lis- tener as it does to the speaker, we must use terms that have clear and unconfused meanings. Transvestism and transvest- ite do not have clear meanings as nouns any more. As an ad- jective, i e "transvestic impulses" it would convey mean- ing, as a verb, i e. "to transvest" (cross dress) it is clear but as a noun it means nothing because you would have to in- clude everybody who wore any clothing of the opposite sex for any reason, at any time, and with many different satis- factions attached to doing so.

Trying to make things clearer by referring to hetero- and homo-sexual transvestites is utterly ridiculous because (a) you would have to have one single class of persons clearly defined as transvestites which class could then be further broken down into hetero- and homo-. This condition does not exist (b) It is customary in the English language