RANSVESTIA

there was (and for some still is) the erotic phase in which the act of dressing brought on sexual arousal. But then came the phase when you left the clothes on for a time after the sexual release was over and you began to find that there was a pleasure other than a sexual one in "being" a girl. You began to get acquainted with that side of yourself that had lain more or less untouched since you were a baby, and which as a matter of convenience we designate the feminine side since it encompasses all those aspects of the human potentials and talents that can be thought of as "non boy". If, as you got older, you looked well enough and were daring (or foolish) enough to go out in public and interact with other people in various ways, your life experience as a girl complemented your ordinary experience as a boy-man so that you were in reality becoming androgenous. You probably found that when the pressures of your masculine life got a little too much you could take refuge in your dresses and, for the moment, forget about the masculine world that lay heavily upon you. You were literally turning off your left brain functions, putting your masculinity into cold storage for a little while and giving vent to that other part of your total humanity which had always been part of you but which society and your training made you supress. You found it good and satisfying and in spite of fears, guilts, shame and perhaps occasionally discovery, punishment and embarrassment you kept it up whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Outsiders always find it hard to understand why an FP continues to practice a behavior which exacts such a high price for its pleasures. To them it seems that if the cost is that high any sensible person would say, "I'm just not going to pay it anymore," and would quit. What these people don't and never will understand, unless they experience it for themselves, if that the conjunction of the masculine and feminine in one person at the same time is one of the most fulfilling and integrating experiences a person can have. Even some of your practitioners of the "art" will balk at that assertion-possibly because you haven't progressed to the point where you can really experience this or perhaps because your guilt and shame are still so strong that they occupy too much of your attention and don't let you really experience the subtler feelings of "boys meets girl." But any of you past that stage will agree with me I'm sure.

Even those who go through sex change surgery and then express how much happier and at ease they are than before, are really relating to the gender change, not the sexual one. Sex is really a very

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