Transvestia

covering and armor are stripped away.

Anyway, Paul said, “Why don't you let me make the decisions then," and I said O.K. and he told me to go on into the pool and that I could get in either circle I wanted. I replied that I sure as hell wasn't going to get in the men's circle. "So alright, then," he told me, "into the women's circle.” So I reluctantly and somewhat embarrassedly went to the pool and got in the girl's circle. I wasn't embarrassed because of the nudity or the fact of my TVism but because of my just concluded gut-spilling and not being sure how the rest would take it.

The instructions were, without speaking look into your partner's eyes steadily for one minute, next hold hands for another minute, then place hands on shoulders and necks for a minute and finally, on signal, to “relax and react as you feel." This was something like the exercise of the night before but this time it was naked and in the water skin to skin as it were. It so happened that I drew as my first confrontation the tall Rex Harrison type on whose lap I had sat the night before. Turned out he was a therapist himself but for that weekend he was just one of the group. Anyway we interacted and when the signal to react came he just gathered me in his arms, held and rocked me, tipped my face up and kissed me. Considering how I felt at that moment it was very appropriate, comforting and reassuring and gave me the strength to continue on around the circle. With the next man I let myself sink slightly when we had hands on shoulders until the water got right up to my nostrils. He got the message and lifted me up, just what I wanted at the time to be dependent on someone else, let him make the decisions. So it went around the circle. Every one of the men treated me just exactly as they did every one of the other women without pretense or embarrassment. In fact the last man was the one referred to previously who had known me before and who had said the night before that he guessed I wasn't so bad. When he reacted, he too gathered me in his arms and kissed me. Anyway I cite this as the most complete acceptance and turnabout of feelings of anyone there. I think it was a significant example of how one can change in feelings about another person when one really knows them from the inside as it were. I had really shown my inner self in the preceding session and from that he had developed understanding and compassion and he showed it with the kiss.