RANSVESTIA

ANSVE

was coined to apply specifically to heterosexual men who enjoyed cross dressing. Homosexual cross dressing in the interest of promoting sexual relationships was not new but it was new to medicine to find that heterosexual men did this too. Obviously being heterosexual- most of them are or have been married and 75 percent of them are fathers their motivations and satisfactions must be quite different.

But today the word transvestite is used indescriminately so that all it says is that someone is crossdressing. In short it says what he DOES, not what he IS. So I have coined the word "femmiphilia" for the condition and "femmiphile" for the individual. It comes from a combination of the Latin femina for woman or feminine and Greek phillia for love and it therefore means, "lover of the feminine." This adequately describes the heterosexual cross dresser's motivation and therefore what he IS. From here on I'll use the customary abbreviation of FP.

What characterizes the FP and how does he differ from the other two classes? Let me say here, however, that this phenomenon is effec- tively limited to males since females can wear any kind of clothing they wish without censorship. The typical FP begins his interest in feminine clothing before puberty when for reasons running from taking a girl's part in a play, going to a New Year's or Halloween party as a girl, to simple curiosity, he puts on some feminine clothing for the first time. In the beginning such intimate contact with feminine things probably results in an erection which is then relieved by stan- dard techniques of masturbation. This leads to shame and guilt both because of the masturbation and because "boys just don't wear panties and dresses" or whatever he had had on. The guilt and shame make him swear that he will never repeat the performance but he does because there is a very compelling satisfaction involved.

As time passes and he gets more fully dressed and proficient at it, he dresses whenever the opportunity presents itself. Comes a time, however, when after dressing and relieving the sexual tension he does not get out of the clothing right away but leaves it on while he watches television, fixes something to eat or whatever. When this happens he begins to feel a very special new satisfaction, that of just "being a girl." In due course his acquaintance with this "girl within" develops and he may give her a girl's name. What happens gradually over the years is that this part of himself, this "non-boy" that he was forced to reject in the process of growing up and acquiring mas-

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