I am interested in perspectives from men and women of any race and in any profession, but I’ll share my own thoughts to give an idea of where I am going with the question:
As a black man, I do not leave the house without shaving. I only wear jeans for doing yardwork and other chores. I only wear running shoes for exercise. I always dress in public more conservatively and more formally than my white male colleagues. The reason: it makes a difference in how the police treat me, whether old women clutch their purses, whether women cross the street to avoid me at night, whether I am followed when I am shopping, whether I receive good service, etc.
But I have also been in two fields (academia and IT) where dressing up can actually be perceived as LESS serious, as a sign that one lacks substance and is too concerned with fashion.
My general solution is that for daily wear, I go with khakis and a button down oxford (always pressed but no necktie) and a tweed sport coat.
or something along those lines anyway.
How do you balance attractiveness, professionalism, being taken seriously, etc. What particular issues influence you, given your profession, lifestyle, and who you are?
Any of you cross dress? or know someone who does? I just wanna see is the % is accurate.
I found out that my fiance likes to dress in my clothes and underwear. And I looked on his e-mail and found him on a crossdressing dating site looking for locals! And he also had an email about a sex change operation that he had asked about… and was SERIOUSLY considering getting….. I’m really NOT comfortable with it but the other night I asked him about it and he was open about it, and I asked him if he played out his fantasy as a woman if it would get him over it. Well, we did and he said it did get him over it. But I found the e-mails today, even though they’re like a month old. But the sex was 2 nights ago…what do you think?
I knew that he was a cross dresser when we first started going out, so the honesty thing isn’t a complete issue. And i talked to him after I posted this and he deleted the e-mail address, and all the other stuff he had been on. We talked about it for about 2 hours last night, and few times more after that, in little bits and pieces. And he hasn’t done anything else with the website or the e-mail or the clothes. When the issue of insecurity was brought up, his mom abused him very badly when he was little. I mean REALLY bad. All 3 of her kids got taken from her and there relationship still isn’t that good because of it. He’s had other issues with insecurity and fear because of his mother, so that might be where its come from. But like I said he hasn’t done anymore with it, and he hadn’t talked to anyone one the sites, hadn’t e-mailed anyone, hasn’t talked to anyone on the cell phone or anything. So I’m positive that its done with.
He keeps telling me that he doesn’t deserve me and doesn’t know how I can stay with him when he was so dishonest with me and everything. He’s never told me that he didn’t deserve me before. And he was really sincere about it because its this thing with him that you can tell when he’s lying. He’s not very good at not telling the truth. He gets real quiet when he’s being serious. Becuase like I said he’s insecure because his mother would beat him and his brothers for no reason. She was on drugs at the time, big time, but still, that’s no excuse in my opinion. She damaged him for life. And he knows it. But anyway, he was so scared that I was going to leave him if he told me how deep he really felt about it, so that’s why he didn’t tell me everything before. But now I know the truth and its over and done with. Even though I will keep an eye on it.
At what age do straight men tend to develop an inclination for cross dressing? (When they do at all) I know people who cross dress, but none of them are straight males so I thought I’d ask here.
Valerie
Meg