Transvestia

distress both the psychoanalysts and the fetishists!

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On the other hand, I must take exception to his stand on pages 31-34 that TV has an erotic basis. Too many of us have reported otherwise for their viewpoint to be so completely rejected; to me, the subject is still open. My feeling is that, like war, sex is so overwhelming a force as to divert every- thing in its path to a special purpose. There is scarcely an object or an idea on earth that has not been used for either military or erotic purposes (or both) at one time or another; if the "girl" is sometimes used for sexual gratification, that scarcely PROVES that she is "rooted" in sex and especially when she typically appears several years before puberty! The Doctor makes quite a point of the feelings of "arousal" or heightened sensation which we all report when dressed as being sexual recent work by D. E. Berlyne (Scientific American,) indicates that these feelings can result from "novel, complex or ambiguous stimuli" as well as from the classical hunger, sexual appetite etc. Of the "con- flicting and incongruous" situations he describes, none can compare with the always-new stimulus of a man seeing a girl in the mirror!

•

but

The treatment of TV is, on the whole, excellent; one could wish that such an understanding and sympath- tic doctor would devote his career to writing a com- plete book about us. As for the TS sections, I do not feel qualified to express an opinion on this subject (except that reading them should convince any worried TV that she is NOT on a "sleigh-ride to Casablanca". If you need to read a book to make up your mind whether you are TS or not, you are NOT!) Fortunately, a friend and neighbor who has gone the whole TS route has agreed to collaborate with me; her section follows.

Since I am a successfully operated-on TS, I have agreed to review and add my personal comments on the TS portion of Dr. Benjamin's book. First let me de-

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