RANSVESTIA

8. TYPES OF CROSS DRESSERS:

a. The homosexual Drag Queen: This individual adds gender to sex for the benefit of the male partner principally, though for some it would appear to enhance, legitimize and coordinate the sexual feelings of the queen herself. That is, the female role of orifice pro- vider is balanced by having tapped into the appropriate psychic state.

b. The Fetishist: Dressing for this type of individual starts with dress- ing and stays there through all the years of sexual potency. When sexual libido wanes so does the interest in dressing. Psychiatry knows of many kinds of single item fetishists-handkerchiefs, shoes, panties, hair, etc. It does NOT KNOW about what we call the Whole Girl Fetishist. For these, the fetish is the whole feminine image from hair to heels. Whether an individual is really a WGF may not be clear until old age when suddenly the sex drive and the urge to dress disappear simultaneously. For such people each dressing event is planned in expectation of the erotic event which comes sooner or later in the experience.

c. The masochistic, bondage, humiliation and punishment types: These various individuals can be considered as a group because they are all manifestations of two factors in various proportions. (1) Moral masochism or psychic pain and (2) nonresponsible im- maturity. Since throughout history the female has been in an in- ferior and subjugated status relative to the male, it is a comedown for a male to appear to be forced into that subservient position. Thus the masochistic individual dressed in feminine clothes is en- abled to be "hurt" by the process which is by his standards plea- surable... thus the motivation for dressing. Those who go in for bondage take it one step further-they are physically restrained and therefore helpless and to be bound while dressed means that they are twice pained and thus twice pleasured. Humiliation and punishment have some of the same masochistic pleasure involved but in addition there is the weak, helpless child reaction of “I couldn't help dressing, he (or she, or they) made me do it." Thus the personal desire to dress which cannot be tolerated is put off on someone else and the individual is therefore in a position of childlike nonresponsibility. He gets what he wants but he doesn't have to pay any price in terms of guilt.

64