Why?

[Shannon]

For about 20 some years now I have been wondering why I want to do this, crossdress. I still wonder.....

In my mind I think I know why... but it always seems perverted and bad so I try not to think about it.

The main reason for me is sexual. I recently joined Tri-Ess in hopes it would provide me the opportunity to talk with others who feel the same, but I got the impression Tri-Ess was just men who enjoyed their feminine side.... Well to a degree I enjoy mine. I think it makes me a better person. I feel like I am more sensitive and understanding of others. I feel like I treat people nicer because of my femine aspect....

But the crossdressing to me is basically a sexual endevor so far. My wife has said several time lately that she wouldn't mind if I just sat around and watched TV or worked on the computer while dressed, just a point of order she used to say just the opposite...

And I must admit that it is starting to sound good to me. It would be nice to just sit around dressed and enjoy the feeling of being dressed... but I am sure I would still find it sexually stimulating. Is that wrong? Why does it happen?

The female clothing to me is sexy. I like to see it on women, and I like to feel it one me. I keep hearing that this makes me a "transvestite" and NOT a crossdresser. That bothers me..... not because I hate transvestites, but because I don't like articles or studies telling me what I am... I am what I am not.... I don't feel the need for a label or being told I can't use a particular label.

Then I see that all transvestites will eventually become transexuals... SHARON(SO) sees the same things.... I know deep in my being that I don't desire to be a total woman. I like my lower extremitites, I like being a man in my everyday life. I like working on my car or motorcycle. I like who I am... I don't want to change who I am IN EITHER DIRECTION, more man or more woman.

I just am not sure why I feel this need... Now don't get me wrong. I don't dislike having this feeling. I enjoy it very much. I just always end up feeling like it is "wrong" because of what others say or think.

Well again I am rambling... I had a point to make..... Did I make it? I doubt it.... If this post continues, maybe I'll post more about what makes me --- me....

[Alexandra]

in my little opinion, I highly doubt that you're in any danger of becoming a transexual, because of your primary attraction to female clothes. I suspect if there was a "danger" it would surface as a feeling of wanting to be a WOMAN, not the attraction of wearing women's clothes.

s sez: "but it always seems perverted"

This is only the result of prejudiced thinking in our society. Its only "bad" because people like Jerry Falwell says it is and we let them get away with it mostly unchallenged. The sooner everybody realizes Falwell and friends have selfish motives, the better off we'll all be.

Sorry for getting on my political soapbox, oppression by society gets out the worst (best?) in me.

[Beauty]

Hi Shannon,

I think when we have limited dressing it does become more sexual than when dressing a lot around the house.

I joined Tri-Ess back in 1987. I was a member for a couple of years. They have a very strict charter, but until the web, they were only source CD's had to get to know each other.

I have kind of moved away from their charter and have embarked upon my own road.

I hope you take your wife up on her offer to dress more. You'll start to notice how it's less sexual. Not at first though!!!

Beauty

[Gaven McLaren]

Well they have the same meaning. The difference is where you live for the most part. If you live west of the Atlantic it is crossdresser. Go to a small island nation east of the Atlantic and it is transvestite. Or at is what I have picked up from other pages on the web. Now as far as lables one way or another I do not like them at all. I am who I am, and who I am is a human who happens to like soft fabrics.

[Danielle La Belle]

Hi Shannon:

Okay, so bear with me for a few lines. Typically, when someone asks a question of us, we give a reply that is on the surface. That is, people do not expect you to give an analysis of the topic as an answer. They want a simple answer. Simple or surface answers provide a quick means of reply with understood values in your current social environment.

eg., Working in a computer environment, I may reply using simple abbreviations that only computer people understand as part of their daily vocabulary. You can obviously apply this principle to most professions. Each having a special vocabulary particular to the profession.

So when you say that your interest is "sexual," we all can give general social answers, but they do not really get to the root of the response that you have. If you really want to know, you must start with how the brain functions. How is information transmitted, stored, recalled and defined.

Eg., what makes man attracted to woman sexually? Many women today admit that they are attracted in a special way to a man's penis. Men will say that they are attracted to a woman/s breasts. WHY? Not a surface answer, "I like the way they look," but an indepth answer along a more scientific concept is needed to answer your question.

That is why you are not getting resolution to this question about sexual stimulus. Simply put, it all has to do with how the brain is configured. There is data in the chromosomes from your parents that carry specific information about primal fears, predjudices, and other parameters that effect you as an individual.

If you are at all familiar with human biology then you can understand that when you come into contact with a virus, which may be a single cell, in a microscopic dust particle floating in the air and it enters your body thru eyes, mouth or nose. It then attaches itself to a good cell and migrates through the cell's outer membrane in the the cell control center. The cell mutates according to the virus information and ta-da, starts to reproduce at a very fast rate according to the information provided by the virus.

The new virus cells now according to programming last about 14 days and multiply quickly going to work on some specific part of the anatomy. Runny nose, sore throat etc. Think of it as a software program that only lives for 14 days. It runs out of steam in it's programming after 14 days so we get over the cold. Additonally, our good cells record and store data about the virus and build up immunity cells to ward off this virus should it appear again at a later date. That is why some colds come and go quickly, we have had them before but we now have cells prepared to resist better the programing thus reducing the severity and time exposure.

A virus is viral not like bacteria that continues to grow and destroy and can over time be deadly. Thus we should only use antibiotics when it is apparent through blood tests that we have a high white cell count indicating a bacterial infection is forming. Some people get this from a cold virus when it affects the lungs and creates conditions that promote bacterial development. The anti-bacterial medicine does not have any effect on the programming of the cold virus, it just arrests the bacterial infection that set in after the cold virus cased the lungs to be irritated and have fluid build up that the bacteria grew in.

Phew! Now, that we have cover a bit of basic biology, on to sexual stimulus. What stimulates you when your wife is dressed in certain clothing? Well, it is not just the clothing my friend. Geometry has a great deal to do with it. When you see her, your brain has extensive information recorded about her and past events. In addition, think about the fact that two people can stand side-by-side and often if it is a [GG] girl and A CD that is dressed, we can tell which is which most of the time.

If they wear the same outfit and are the same height. We still can tell providing that the CD does not disguise his "geometry" with heavy makeup. You know what I mean. There is just something that says, male. Excluding the "apple" from view, there is still geometric concepts that distinguish us apart. The brain can pickup on these cues and help you make a fairly quick answer about each person.

There are a host of "white papers" at university level that are available on the internet that address how the brain works. If you are stimulated by what your wife would wear, it makes sense that you may as well trip off the same brain patterns when you wear the same garments and get a similar response.

Some CD's that say they do not get this response but are attracted to women may have a mis-firing synapse or two but most likely they are not being honest. If a CD is really TS then that would make sense wouldn't it. They really may feel more attracted to men, but are not gay. They are hetro-women in a male body.

If people really want answers they are not going to find them with the "chatty cathy's" in a forum. They just want to be heard. Lonely, desperate, whatever! There is plenty of good science out their for you to research and really find the basic answers that you are looking for. That is, if you really are looking for sound, answers, with a scientific basis and not just chit-chat social guru's that are willing to say whatever comes to mind. Opinion, yes, but there is more than an ounce of truth to this. Most people think they know the answers when in fact, without extensive academic study they are just tooting in the wind!

[Beauty]

Hi Shannon:

Okay, so bear with me for a few lines. . . .

Beauty

[Beauty]

Hi LM,

I've been reading your post in pieces. It's very interesting. I first thought it was more about studies, but it's actually you telling us more about you! I like it.

We both started dressing at about the same age.

re: Dressing/Sex
For me, I thought @ 19 my desires for CD'ing were purely sexual. However, the more I accepted it the less sexual it became. The more I repressed it the more sexual it became.

I didn't desire to socialize with anyone either, but the more I discovered the similarities between myself in other CDs, things slowly changed/evolved and I began to seek out interaction. Once again making it less sexual and more a part of my whole personality.

Since your wrote so much (so well). This should be a great thread for open discussion about different aspects of CD'ing.

Beauty

[RikkiOfLA]

Wow!

A heavy, heavy post that really got me thinking!

Because of aging and the heavy medicine I take (high BP, borderline type II diabetes, high cholesterol), I've become impotent. Got a Px for Viagra Good stuff. Kinda reactivated the old sex life.

Am I turned on by crossdressing? Oh yeah. And I say this after dressing all my life, coming to accept it, being out of the closet, and even dressing virtually full time including work for the past 5 years.

Still turned on by it? Yep. I can't quite say that for me the turn-on diminishes over time (there's been plenty of time, and the turn-on is still there), acceptance, opportunities to dress, and so on. The turn on changes, to be sure. I'm not horny any more at the mere prospect of donning a pair of pantyhose. I no longer agonize over whether I should dress or not. (I should!)

My growing edge these days is to use this aspect of my sexuality responsibly. Responsibly = having mutually very enjoyable sex with my wife frequently.

This means I dress differently for the bedroom than for the street (duh!).
VERY fortunately, my wife and I have a long, successful history of knowing what turns each of us on in the bedroom, and a lot of overlap in our interests there!

I used to be able to say that WHY for me was a little bit of everything--sex, envy at what women can wear, creativity, and even a % of discomfort with being male.

After really accepting my CDing, what has happened to those different whys?

Sexual turnon--still there, a lot more under control now

Envy--still there (I really notice it when I can't dress for even a few hours). I can't call it envy, though, since now I do it daily. I have to call it DEEP SATISFACTION!

Creativity--still there, very, very positive. It's fun to dress, still after doing it for years. Fun to dress very, very appropriately for what I'm doing, whether chores, partying, shopping, work, etc.

Discomfort with being male? That's going away. I'm not very male, actually. And that's just fine with me. The hardest part is that I find here I am dressing full time, interacting with people, and some of what I say to people is still unabashedly male though I don't intend it. A little disconcerting, to say the least! But I'm learning to live with that.

[Beauty]

Hi Rikki,

I agree, what a great post!

I have a couple of questions for you.

Since you dress fulltime, what has been your biggest adjustment?

You said you dress differently for the bedroom. Does this mean you dress en drabbe clothing when you go to bed? If you're being intimate there comes a point (no pun intended) where there aren't any clothes. So my confusion was just in what you wear to bed or if you wife accepts your feminine attire as also being seductive. (I understand if you can't answer because that is very personal)

Beauty

[Danielle La Belle]

Rikki:

What a refreshingly [open] post! I was going to use the word “honest” but that by definition would imply others not being honest for which I really have no basis for comparison. Your frank and deliberate information I imagine can be associated with many in the T* community. While, we are often embarrassed to admit to such feelings, I have reason to believe that they are more common than not. Some "doth protest too much" re; William Shakespear, "Hamlet."

Our genetic instincts often over-ride more basic desires that develop from living in a communal society. Being able to integrate this very personal feature into your marriage demonstrates a remarkably understanding relationship.

I want to stress to others that if they cannot say that they have such a relationship that it is nothing to be over concerned about. As humans, we all like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers. That we control our destiny and everyday events affecting us. In reality, we all are biologically bound to the attributes of the brains chemical process and the DNA characteristics from family and society. Empirically, as science proves out more often than not, our decision process is peppered with “living” information that we neither developed or experienced on a personal level. Rather, it is information that is transferred via DNA and for which we have no current means to directly determined that which we choose and that which has been chosen for us in any one decision that we make.

Simply put; we are not as individual as we would like to think, any of us! I.E., I choose to get up in the morning and go to work. This concept goes back to early childhood and our training in going to church, school etc. But rising at daylight goes back 10,000 years. It was safer to be out during the daylight than at night. Our vision being what it is, restricted us to daylight viewing as a safe mode in comparison to the darkness.

Sexually as we might refer to it, there are fixed conditions for that area of science to study as well. Restrictions, taboos, conditioning, and a host of fixed parameters that do not change throughout the social world-wide continuum. There isn’t a current culture that automatically chooses as a majority to couple with those of the same sex. Not one! Good, bad, or indifferent, this seems to be imposed on the majority to insure reproduction of the species. That is not to say that there is anything wrong with those “wired” differently, only that they will never be in the majority. We have several planets and many stars in our solar system alone. Minority, and majority!

Thank you for your [open] thinking and sharing with the T* community at this forum level!
P.S. Unfortunately, my wife has High BP, (controlled), type II diabetes (diet controlled), and high cholesterol (controlled). She is also a bipolar personality, not related to the previous three conditions.

[Anthony Simon]

This is a thread started by the founder of the site, Shannon, from 2003 (i.e. really early in its history). I was just struck by the way Shannon kind of implies the reason for starting the site was to be able to talk about the sexual side of CDing (see para 3 below). But the fact is the sexual side still remains mostly "the elephant in the room" (IMHO)

For about 20 some years now I have been wondering why I want to do this, crossdress. I still wonder.....

In my mind I think I know why... but it always seems perverted and bad so I try not to think about it.

The main reason for me is sexual. I recently joined Tri-Ess in hopes it would provide me the opportunity to talk with others who feel the same, but I got the impression Tri-Ess was just men who enjoyed their feminine side.... Well to a degree I enjoy mine. I think it makes me a better person. I feel like I am more sensitive and understanding of others. I feel like I treat people nicer because of my femine aspect....

But the crossdressing to me is basically a sexual endevor so far. My wife has said several time lately that she wouldn't mind if I just sat around and watched TV or worked on the computer while dressed, just a point of order she used to say just the opposite...

And I must admit that it is starting to sound good to me. It would be nice to just sit around dressed and enjoy the feeling of being dressed... but I am sure I would still find it sexually stimulating. Is that wrong? Why does it happen?

The female clothing to me is sexy. I like to see it on women, and I like to feel it one me. I keep hearing that this makes me a "transvestite" and NOT a crossdresser. That bothers me..... not because I hate transvestites, but because I don't like articles or studies telling me what I am... I am what I am not.... I don't feel the need for a label or being told I can't use a particular label.

Then I see that all transvestites will eventually become transexuals... SHARON(SO) sees the same things.... I know deep in my being that I don't desire to be a total woman. I like my lower extremitites, I like being a man in my everyday life. I like working on my car or motorcycle. I like who I am... I don't want to change who I am IN EITHER DIRECTION, more man or more woman.

I just am not sure why I feel this need... Now don't get me wrong. I don't dislike having this feeling. I enjoy it very much. I just always end up feeling like it is "wrong" because of what others say or think.

Well again I am rambling... I had a point to make..... Did I make it? I doubt it.... If this post continues, maybe I'll post more about what makes me --- me....

The penultimate paragraph and para 2 have the idea that CDing gives Shannon the feeling of doing something "wrong" and " perverted and bad" and that makes Shannon not want to think about the reason for dressing up. I think that's very important in that it's both the reason that the sexual aspect is "the elephant in the room" and reflects the way CDing is seen as a perversion by the rest of the world. In para 6 you get an equivalence being made between the dressing up for sexual reasons and being a transvestite (rather than a Crossdresser). So transvestite gets used as shorthand for pervert, as opposed to crossdresser which doesn't carry the sexual connotation [Excluding the UK where there is no distinction between the two terms].

OK. So where I am is that I remember that feeling of intense, powerful sexual drive to dress up which at the same time felt wrong and perverted. And after the ejaculation, deep guilt. I actually still have an intense sexual drive to dress up, but it doesn't feel wrong and perverted and there is no guilt. I gave up the CDing in my late 20s because I thought I was going to go mad with it - repressed it. There was another period when I dressed up in my late 30s-40s but it wasn't half as intense and it seems like the stuff that created the guilt had gone. This period, in my 50s, is probably as intense, but the emotions seem lined up differently - and in a more positive manner. It does actually give me a feeling of well-being rather than just hating myself. But it's still sexual, although the non-sexual aspects (such as holding myself) seem much more prominent.

So, for me, the dark aspects which I used to associate with dressing up, and made me feel it was essentially a sexual perversion, have gone (or been split off, gone elsewhere). I think, in part, that's because I've learnt to own the aggression and rage that is so significant part of my character and not implode them, fold them into, the CDing. That is to say the sense that CDing was a sexual perversion came not because of the sexual side but it was corrupted with these dark (or potentially dark) sides of my character (and you can make positive use of aggression and rage - sometimes).

OK, based on my experience I want to suggest that the problem with CDing is not that its sexual (when it is), but that there's some dark aspects of one's character in there along with the sexual side - and things that one can't separate out with any degree of ease. If that is so, the outside world's negative view of CDing - based as it is on the idea of Cding as a sexual perversion - would be wrong. Because it isn't the Sex, per se, that's wrong - it's the dark aspects of (some) people that get folded into the sexual ones that are the problem.

Shannon doesn't seem to be around anymore, which is a pity. But still...

[Anita]

So, for me, the dark aspects which I used to associate with dressing up, and made me feel it was essentially a sexual perversion, have gone (or been split off, gone elsewhere). I think, in part, that's because I've learnt to own the aggression and rage that is so significant part of my character and not implode them, fold them into, the CDing. That is to say the sense that CDing was a sexual perversion came not because of the sexual side but it was corrupted with these dark (or potentially dark) sides of my character (and you can make positive use of aggression and rage - sometimes).

There's a lot in your post, Anthony. I had both problems--the guilt over the sexuality, and the dark raging side of my self, too. Getting older helped me with both of these issues. There seems to be an acceptance that comes over time, in my case.

Sexuality is still difficult to really talk about here on the forum. At one point, we proposed a separate and limited membership forum for those discussions.

I miss Shannon's presence on this board. It has been a long time since he checked in. It was a shock to see this post, as a matter of fact.

In some sense, sexuality of ANY kind is an elephant in the room. It's like a huge magnet that attracts all kinds of objects to it, without any rhyme or reason as to why they're there together. And the magnet is different for each person, and there's a lot of judgment about it; we don't "celebrate diversity" when it comes to sexuality.

That's a curious thing. We all know from personal experience that sexual attraction creates awkward and painful difficulties, and yet seldom do we let other people "off the hook" for this problem. The news is full of stories of other people's mistakes and/or crimes that are sexual in nature, and it's difficult to express any understanding or sympathy for them without being tarred with the same brush.

Unpopular though it may be, I can acknowledge that I understand crimes of anger and rage. I can't do the same with sexuality, and it bothers me. At least there's some discussion of sexuality here, limited though it may be. We do talk about the difficulties from time to time, and it's useful to have a place to talk about them.

[Danielle La Belle]

Hi Girls:

I have decided to jump in here with an observation or two.

First and foremost, lets all agree that for the better part of science, we have evolved from some starting point, into what we represent today. Our “sexuality” evolved right along with us. Frankly, without it, we would not have evolved to the point of survival in reproduction.

Without the aspects of “sexuality,” we may have well, at some early point in evolution, eaten our counterparts, (females), rather than have them give life to the next generation. It really is just that simple I think. We are, what we are, because through evolution, we managed to adapt all our known reproductive traits. That includes “sexuality.”

On a mature, adult level, one cannot help but consider our physical development and how each of the two recognized sex types, work hand-in-hand to generate the next generation of human beings. There simply would be no human race without that delicate interactive “dance” between male and female of the species.

So, perhaps, we need to better understand that as such, we tend to complicate things with our own personal social designs. If we carefully remove religion, and related moral and social rules, living by the philosophy of the “Tao,” we would all be better for it. That is, harm no one, live not off the actions of another, rather, just be and live by your essential nature; which is oneness with society and has no polarity.

Hugs

Danielle Marie

[Elizabeth]

Hi girls,

I want to offer some thoughts on this matter as we have not discussed it in a while, and it is of major importance to our membership. I can only offer my own personal observations and opinions as no one can really say definitively what is going on. What we do know is that there is a correlation between dressing up as women and our sexuality.

But correlation is not causation. We often assume that things that have a correlation also have causation, with one causing the other. However, many things have correlation that are not causation. Sometimes things that happen together happen for a third or unseen reason. As humans we are continually looking for patterns that explain events, that is what causes superstitions and rituals. When we find patterns or correlations of events and assume they were caused by one another, it can leave us wearing a certain shirt to make sure our professional sports franchise wins.

I think many times crossdressing is the same. Lingerie is held up to us as a sexual item. Indeed lingerie is a stimulus we are not accustomed to. As babies and children, girls are exposed to satin, nylon, spandex, and lace. These not unusual fabrics for girls. They are accustomed to having their legs covered in tights which stimulate the entire surface area of the legs, buttocks and genitals. But to a young boy, these are new and unique feelings and sensations.

I propose that a young boy going though puberty can sexualize anything. Because of our interest in wearing the clothes to begin with, the combination of our new sexuality along with all these new sensations the clothes brings us. Because we are stimulated by the clothes, we make an assumption that the clothes are sexually stimulating us, when in fact it's only our craving for unique experiences as humans.

It's my belief that men who are not predisposed to crossdressing never make the connection between the fabrics and how they feel and their sexuality. So we confuse our need for new and unique experiences as a sexual urge when in fact the urge to put the clothes on to begin with had nothing to do with our sexuality. But since they are both things we are not supposed to be doing, masturbating and wearing girls chothes, we make a correlation between them that in reality does not exist.

That is why after time the dressing becomes disconnected from our sexuality. Not as we age as much as the newness wears off and it stops being a unique experience, it no longer stimulates us sexually, so the two diverge back to where they started and become the two distinct things they really always were.

My need to dress came before my I found I was sexually aroused by them. But I knew that I was really a girl, unlike many crossdressers. I never dressed much before I came out of the closet because it didn't solve the problem of me not being a girl. In fact sometimes dressing depressed me as it made me realize I was never going to be the person I felt I was meant to be.

It was only after I came out of the closet and told the world that I was a really a girl in a big male body that I hated, that dressing as a woman made sense to me. It reaffirms who and what I am. It's a prop, as it were and feels appropriate to me. I have not been in male clothes for six years now and do not even own any male clothes.

If you find all of this very confusing, join the club. Imagine trying to explain to visiting aliens why it's ok to wear a bikini in public but not a matching panty and bra set. Why is that?

If you were born male and went through puberty than you have seen what testosterone can do. It takes one from thinking girls are "yucky" to wanting to masturbate thinking about having sex with one. It is this hormone that causes us to sexualize things. Get rid of the testosterone and the only things that leaves is the sexualization of the clothes with the sex drive. The desire to dress remains.

They are separate things that we have made a phony correlation and that is why no one has ever confirmed Blanchard's heavily flawed study from 1989, which is the basis of his "autogyniphillia" theory. I propose no such thing exists and hopefully I will prove this in my own dissertation at some point.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Anthony Simon]

So, for me, the dark aspects which I used to associate with dressing up, and made me feel it was essentially a sexual perversion, have gone (or been split off, gone elsewhere). I think, in part, that's because I've learnt to own the aggression and rage that is so significant part of my character and not implode them, fold them into, the CDing. That is to say the sense that CDing was a sexual perversion came not because of the sexual side but it was corrupted with these dark (or potentially dark) sides of my character (and you can make positive use of aggression and rage - sometimes).

There's a lot in your post, Anthony. I had both problems--the guilt over the sexuality, and the dark raging side of my self, too. Getting older helped me with both of these issues. There seems to be an acceptance that comes over time, in my case.

Thanks Anita. I actually always thought if I can get to middle-age (which I'm doing late) then the rage should become manageable - and so it's proving. Maybe you just come to accept something about the shape of your life.

Sexuality is still difficult to really talk about here on the forum. At one point, we proposed a separate and limited membership forum for those discussions.

I miss Shannon's presence on this board. It has been a long time since he checked in. It was a shock to see this post, as a matter of fact.

I'm pretty new here and am kind of blundering about in some ways. So I didn't mean to be shocking, but I guess I'm not so attuned to sensibilities as I would be if I'd been here a while. Anyway, I'm sorry about that. I did kind of feel that this (sexuality etc) was an issue that was sort of sidelined in a way that was brought out in Shannon's post.

In some sense, sexuality of ANY kind is an elephant in the room. It's like a huge magnet that attracts all kinds of objects to it, without any rhyme or reason as to why they're there together. And the magnet is different for each person, and there's a lot of judgment about it; we don't "celebrate diversity" when it comes to sexuality.

That's true. I mean sexuality is this amazingly powerful force which isn't rational. We're in a society where, notionally, we're all supposed to be rational, acting rationally is the ideal - and non-rational or irrational forces are, in that way, the elephant in the room. Sexuality is the king and queen of such forces and so...

That's a curious thing. We all know from personal experience that sexual attraction creates awkward and painful difficulties, and yet seldom do we let other people "off the hook" for this problem. The news is full of stories of other people's mistakes and/or crimes that are sexual in nature, and it's difficult to express any understanding or sympathy for them without being tarred with the same brush.

Sexual crimes seem like attacks on the private self of a person - intrusive and invasive - (I mean rape can destroy a person's life). I think that's a lot of it, the sort of getting inside people that such crimes involve that makes people recoil. I think it's partly self-protection. Just stating that such a crime is evil allows you to avoid any such parallel forces within oneself. And I can certainly vouch for having various noxious sexual fantasies (unacted upon) over the years.

Unpopular though it may be, I can acknowledge that I understand crimes of anger and rage. I can't do the same with sexuality, and it bothers me. At least there's some discussion of sexuality here, limited though it may be. We do talk about the difficulties from time to time, and it's useful to have a place to talk about them.

Well I can understand the enraged lover killing his partner in kind of existential desperation. That sort of selfish sexually-rooted crime I can sort of feel the motivations for, even while I think it betrays a massive egoism. FWIW I think there's a massive amount of injured pride in a lot of sexual crime - kind of the more you're hurt, the more you want to hurt back - and the internal damage such crime provides becomes attractive because it lasts.

So then that's, to me, an example of what I was talking about in the context of CDing - sexuality getting corrupted with rage. I mean crime kind of implies some sort of violence, even if it's of the invisible emotional sort.

That we don't celebrate diversity when it comes to sexuality is surely a key point. In some sense we're locked into very traditional paradigms that say that the only sort of legitimate sexuality is that associated with marriage between men and women. But with such a powerful force is it any wonder that there are other variants? Surely not. And why, in a society as complex and variable as ours should not such variants find their place so long as they do no harm to others - and shock, horror, even benefit those who practice them? And as it happens my CDing (with its sexual aspect) is holding my rage.