RANSVESTIA

if secret thing to do. Some time during teenage I managed to suppress my love for female clothes, but not before my mother got a beautiful corselette from a friend. This, unlike the other garments was new and had a scent of powder. I never got beyond getting the garment on and getting the feel of it and then having to take it off. I wish I had it now. Somewhere along the line I found a slip of my sister's that I liked and tried it on several times too. Then my conscience got the better of me and for the years before going to the senior seminary and the seven years studying I managed to regard my urge to wear feminine clothes as part of my youthful temptations. It was around 1958 as a missionary in Africa that the thing flared up again. I had discovered that nylon panties appealed as less likely to irritate my tender scrotum after having Dhobies itch.

I discovered that in the markets there were plently of brightly colored panties that came from some Asian country such as Hong Kong and that you could duck in quietly and go through them and pick out something and that the traders, men or women would not bat an eyelid to see a big Europena male selecting a pair of panties. Vanity or inability to figure my size made me buy many that were too small, but I discovered my size and had a lot of fun buying them. One deal I pulled off was to order a corselette from a British company. I remember being afraid to pick it up at the post office, that one of my buddies would sneak up behind me. The black official asked me if the garment was a corset and seemed to be pleased he could identify it and handed it over with great good will.

I had my own parish by this time and was beginning to acquire a collection of my own feminine clothes. On returning to Ireland I just brought my panties with me and even had the gall to tell my mother and sister that they were necessary on account of the condition of my skin.

All this has become confused in my mind because I'm sure there was a big transition from the time I rationalized it was all right to wear panties as a priest to the time when I was prepared to write to a mail-order house and order a corselette. I think several years may have elapsed in between, notably my going to the United States to study Sociology and discovering Sexology and an article entitled, "Men In Female Clothing" or something like that and then discovering Virginia and her great work in making us feel all right about our love of the feminine.

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