Late Night Conversation About Michelle's Mahler Post
"You're not missing anyting."
That was Darling Wife's reaction to the end of my Mahler post yesterday when she read it. She told me about how guarded her own relationships are with other women, how she competes with them in terms of looks and clothes, how she feels that any confidence she makes in her female family members will immediately be shared all around.
She's right, of course. I'm completely guilty of romanticizing female relationships.
Of course, she doesn't understand male relationships, either. About how competitive they are; about how there's a constant jockeying in most of them to see who the alpha male is, about how men are always comparing posessions, salary, wealth.
Or that out of all my male friends, there's only one with whom I could share anything like an intimate personal feeling. I can't even do that regularly with my own brother.
Last night Darling Wife and I stayed up late talking about things, including my recent post. I told her that I wanted to start exploring my trans nature more again, but unlike my previous attempts, when I only tried to explore my feminine feelings, this time I want to see what I like about being a man. So I proposed that I would set aside one night a week for her, where I would be just her husband & do more traditionally masculine things--like taking dancing lessons. I like to lead.
And I also want to set aside a night a week to do girl things as well. I told her I wanted to make things more "ordinary" and she didn't know what I meant; that made two of us. I don't want to do my makeup just to go to the Food Emporium. But I don't want to be stuck just going to tranny bars.
I guess one way to look at it would be that there are things I could do crossdressed or not, and I'd like to do some of them crossdressed. Go to folkmusicienne E.'s gigs, for example (hey, I've already done that.) Meet friends who know about my two sides. Maybe do the odd cultural thing, like go to a concert.
Heck, there's always shopping as well.
The truth is I don't know exactly what it is that I want. But I want to start finding out.
Darling Wife asked a very good question. She wanted to know what it is I wanted to get out of this. What I wanted people to do when I was out crossdressed.
Knowing it to be not quite the right answer, I said that I wanted to be treated like a woman when I was out crossdressed.
That made her upset, and deservedly so. Did I want to be treated like an object? To have my thoughts and opinions discounted automatically? To have to suspect everyone's motives? (Is that guy being nice to me because he's nice, or because he's creepy?)
I understand that. Being a woman in this society sucks. That it sucks less than a lot of places doesn't make it any less painful.
Truth is, I'm not sure what it is that I want when I say I want to feel like a woman. There is the possibility--the very distinct and overwhelmingly likely possibility--that all this is coming out of some warped sexual desire, that I create Michelle as a substitute woman that I'm attracted to, that all this is some huge vanity and bent self-love.
And yet. And yet, when I grew up I hated being around the boys. I hated playing rough. I cried a lot. And I desperately, desperately wanted to feel pretty.
So? Isn't that still just a superficial understanding of women's lives?
Yes. Of course it is. But I can't help it that as long as I've been conscious, some part of me has always felt "girl" even when all the evidence--biological and social--said "boy."
I like who I am. I need to explore my masculinity and integrate it into my life. I've spent a lot of time in the last ten years learning about my feminity. It's time to stop running from my biology and embrace it.
But I still need to understand why I need to feel feminine--to think of myself as feminine, rather, since I'll never really know what it feels like to be feminine.
Is it wrong to just want to feel pretty? Am I betraying women by wanting that? Am I still just a joke? Is it wrong to embrace parts of the beauty myth that oppresses the wonderful women in my life?
I wish I knew. I suspect I never will.
That was Darling Wife's reaction to the end of my Mahler post yesterday when she read it. She told me about how guarded her own relationships are with other women, how she competes with them in terms of looks and clothes, how she feels that any confidence she makes in her female family members will immediately be shared all around.
She's right, of course. I'm completely guilty of romanticizing female relationships.
Of course, she doesn't understand male relationships, either. About how competitive they are; about how there's a constant jockeying in most of them to see who the alpha male is, about how men are always comparing posessions, salary, wealth.
Or that out of all my male friends, there's only one with whom I could share anything like an intimate personal feeling. I can't even do that regularly with my own brother.
Last night Darling Wife and I stayed up late talking about things, including my recent post. I told her that I wanted to start exploring my trans nature more again, but unlike my previous attempts, when I only tried to explore my feminine feelings, this time I want to see what I like about being a man. So I proposed that I would set aside one night a week for her, where I would be just her husband & do more traditionally masculine things--like taking dancing lessons. I like to lead.
And I also want to set aside a night a week to do girl things as well. I told her I wanted to make things more "ordinary" and she didn't know what I meant; that made two of us. I don't want to do my makeup just to go to the Food Emporium. But I don't want to be stuck just going to tranny bars.
I guess one way to look at it would be that there are things I could do crossdressed or not, and I'd like to do some of them crossdressed. Go to folkmusicienne E.'s gigs, for example (hey, I've already done that.) Meet friends who know about my two sides. Maybe do the odd cultural thing, like go to a concert.
Heck, there's always shopping as well.
The truth is I don't know exactly what it is that I want. But I want to start finding out.
Darling Wife asked a very good question. She wanted to know what it is I wanted to get out of this. What I wanted people to do when I was out crossdressed.
Knowing it to be not quite the right answer, I said that I wanted to be treated like a woman when I was out crossdressed.
That made her upset, and deservedly so. Did I want to be treated like an object? To have my thoughts and opinions discounted automatically? To have to suspect everyone's motives? (Is that guy being nice to me because he's nice, or because he's creepy?)
I understand that. Being a woman in this society sucks. That it sucks less than a lot of places doesn't make it any less painful.
Truth is, I'm not sure what it is that I want when I say I want to feel like a woman. There is the possibility--the very distinct and overwhelmingly likely possibility--that all this is coming out of some warped sexual desire, that I create Michelle as a substitute woman that I'm attracted to, that all this is some huge vanity and bent self-love.
And yet. And yet, when I grew up I hated being around the boys. I hated playing rough. I cried a lot. And I desperately, desperately wanted to feel pretty.
So? Isn't that still just a superficial understanding of women's lives?
Yes. Of course it is. But I can't help it that as long as I've been conscious, some part of me has always felt "girl" even when all the evidence--biological and social--said "boy."
I like who I am. I need to explore my masculinity and integrate it into my life. I've spent a lot of time in the last ten years learning about my feminity. It's time to stop running from my biology and embrace it.
But I still need to understand why I need to feel feminine--to think of myself as feminine, rather, since I'll never really know what it feels like to be feminine.
Is it wrong to just want to feel pretty? Am I betraying women by wanting that? Am I still just a joke? Is it wrong to embrace parts of the beauty myth that oppresses the wonderful women in my life?
I wish I knew. I suspect I never will.
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on Thursday, June 02, 2005 at 10:06 AM.
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