RANSVESTIA

including a wig, which was a fright. I guess I looked like the devil but I enjoyed the feel of things.

A month or two after the show my wife was trying on a new dress she had bought and the desire hit me again to dress up. I knew I had to get over it and to do this I had to find something to take my mind off of it. I was then about 40 years old and had a pretty good job, so I couldn't let anything jeopardize it. Luckly a fraternity to which I belonged had asked for volunteers to perform as clowns before sick children in hospitals. I thought, "That's it," and I put all of my spare time into it. We formed a little unit. We hired a professional clown to start us off. I never will forget the thrill of hearing the squeals of laughter at our first performance, when I slapped a pie in the face of my best friend. Since that time, twenty years ago, I have traveled from coast to coat and performed be- fore thousands of kids and have made them scream with a special act I have developed. For obvious reasons I can't tell what it was. During all this time I had no desire to dress.

After retiring from the clowns I was watching my wife try on a new evening dress one night. Just to see what she would say, I said, “Let me try it on too and see what I will look like." She said, "O.K., I would like to see you too. I think it will fit you and it'll be fun." She bave me a bra- ssier which I filled with socks. I put on her hose and saddles. Then she helped me put on the dress, her wig and then made up my face. After she was done I stood up for her to look at and she couldn't believe her eyes. I looked a perfect lady. We tried on several of her other dresses, “just for fun" and she saw how much I enjoyed it and became interested as to why I enjoyed it so much. I thought the time was right and told her the whole story. She was a little shocked but told me to stay dressed until bed time if I wanted to. I did.

The next day there was nothing to do but see our doctor for help in trying to overcome the desire to dress. She insisted on hearing what he had to say, so she went along. I told him my complete story. My wife was most embarrassed and began to cry. The doctor told her not to be upset, that there were thousands of men in the nation that liked women's clothes and the reason for it. He told here there was no cure for my de- sire and the best thing to do was for us to live with it and try to enjoy it. He told us that 95% of the men that crossdress are hetrosexual and not homosexual and made good fathers and providers. Years later I got hold of a copy of "A Transvestite And His Wife," and everything he told us was backed up by Virginia Prince.

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