Jirgin Lews by 92irginia

THE GIRL(BOY) WITHIN

Some years ago Susanna coined the expression, the "Girl Within" as a means of referring to the feminine potential within the man-self. The idea was not new as it is implicit in the teachings of Carl Jung (one of the founders of psychiatry and originally an associate of Freud). He wrote about the "animus" or the masculine in the female and the "anima”, the feminine in the male. But, as his theories never achieved quite the acclaim and currency that Freud's did, not so much is heard of these terms. But the "girl within" is, in effect, just an updated concept ex- pressing the same thing but a little more specifically. The "anima" was sort of a vague concept concerning femininity while the "girl within" as used in our group refers more directly to that feminine person which we are sometimes and which we keep tucked away in the back of our brains the rest of the time.

Now a number of FPs (you might as well get used to the term Femmi- phile and its abbreviation FP as I'm going to use it much of the time from here on - see my Observations article in this issue) indicate in letters and discussions that they haven't much regard for this concept, that it's just a lot of baloney and that all they care about is the fact that they like to dress and that's it. Well, fine, more power to them, but the fact that they haven't had this experience does not mean that it isn't true for others. So let's see what it involves.

I have personally always subscribed to this concept but never was able to have any really concrete proof of it. It was a bit of philosophical terminology that served to improve communication a bit but it had no tangible reality. That is, it didn't until recently. Now as most readers know I said good bye to Charles and started to live as Virginia in April of 1968. Since that time there were 2 days in June of 68 when I had to

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