RANSVESTIA

children. Nudism posed a problem for a TV. Dare he shave under arms and chest and legs? Since I also like to swim and sunbathe I didn't shave anything but my face in summer. At other times it depended of my guarantee of privacy. Once after Mardi Gras I had a fellow-priest visit for a week. We shared the same bathroom which had to be entered through my bedroom, and I removed my pants in his presence, but he never got to see that I had shaved my legs. In Africa we wore shorts all the time. When I suddenly began sporting long pants it made people remark that I was changing my image. Little did they know how. I don't know when I became totally happy with my TVism, but one thing stood in the way. Devotees seemed to put all their eggs in that basket. I felt myself to be a more complex person, sometimes I wanted to be a macho male. At other times I wanted to be in between. Always I've wanted to be artistic, a poet, a writer. I've never invested enough of myself in art to be a painter, but I think if I got to learn the basics I could be a designer, of clothes, or of furniture.

Perhaps TV is not so limiting. It is consonant with creativity in cooking, in housekeeping, in design for living. By the way Charles Nelson Reilly on the Johnny Carson show last night admitted to owning a caftan.

Another difficulty I have, is that up to now I have never succeeded in dressing in such a way as to look really convincing. At most on my Mardi Gras outings I've set people guessing. That's nice, but not enough. It would take more money and expert help and dedication than I have, to achieve that. My beard is very strong. Shaving would have to be very close and very frequent and make-up would have to be very thorough.

I was saying that no matter what I did I never succeeded in looking enough like a woman to really fool anybody. I think there is more to it than just the dressing. My desire to be feminine is just not forceful enough to sustain the drive to carry it off. Then again I've never had the opportunity to be totally femme for a reasonable length of time. There are some things I can do about it. One I have been doing is going to a beauty shop instead of a barber's shop. This gets me into a feminine atmosphere. Sitting next to a woman I am one of the girls. It means being relaxed, because if the operators are busy they are going to go around to other customers and leave you at times. Sitting around in the beauty shop I haven't had occasion to read much, but if

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