Attracted to a man? Read this!

There are many crossdressers and crossdreamers who dream about having relationship with a man as an expression of their femininity. I would like to share my view point about this. If you have that fantasy, I would like to invite you to take a deeper look into yourself. 

Some of you are attracted to men because that boosts your self image as a woman. The thought of being in a relationship with a man (being his girlfriend or wife) pushes you into a peak feminine experience. So, you are easily able to imagine and accept yourself as a woman. Now, this is the bold statement I'd like to make - You are not attracted to that man, but you are attracted to your own image as a woman. Relationship with the man looks attractive, because the thought about such a relationship facilitates your feminine self image. Here, your love is not to the other person but it is directed towards yourself. To be precise, you love your feminine self image at that time.

Another struggling question is whether you are a gay or not. I'd like to put it this way (This is just my opinion). If your attraction falls into the above mentioned category, you are not necessarily a gay. Because your attraction here is just to your own self image and not to the man's physical features. Most crossdreamers have fantasies about having relationship with men, but they don't care how their fantasy hero looks like. So they aren't necessarily gays. But I agree that there could be crossdressers/crossdreamers who are actually attracted to the male physical features of the other man. This post is not about them.

Coming to my world, one of my crossdreaming fantasies was to imagine myself as a  wife! I used to dream of myself wearing a traditional Indian saree, ornaments etc and be a traditional, submissive Indian wife - Cooking food for my hubby, washing his cloths, being very polite and submissve to him always even when he scolds me, surrendering to him always and never challenging his ego. One extreme masochistic fantasy I had was that my man gets angry at me and slaps my beautiful face. Then I weep like a helpless woman covering my face, tears rolling over my cheeks.(Ah...that hurts. But I loved it!). Well...that's it. The core aspect of all of the above fantasies was my own experience of myself as a submissive, polite, obedient and helpless woman. Due to society's stereotyping, these qualities -submissiveness,politeness,obedience,helplessness etc appears to suit to women more than men, so if my own feminine self image has these qualities, then my feminine experience becomes stronger. So the deeper psychological intention behind my "Wife" fantasy is to boost my feminine self image. My attraction is to my own image as a wife. Not to the husband who comes in the dream.

I guess I have made my point. If you are a crossdresser or crossdreamer, and if you feel attracted to a man, do a deeper reflection. Chances are that your attraction is to your own feminine self image. At least some of you, in the surge of emotions, might interpret this as a deep love felt towards the man and you might even act upon getting into a relationship. I am not here to condemn doing that, but I'd like you to reflect upon this point before doing that.

Love,
Jaya

Crossdreaming - Add this word to your dictionary!

Many times, when I chat online with people who describe themselves as "crossdressers", they tell me that they actually don't crossdress much. What they are really attracted to is the idea of "becoming a woman". They have tried crossdressing as part of actualizing this dream, but crossdressing is not their ultimate propelling force. Here, crossdressing is the expression of a deeper and subtler part of their inner self. But still they call themselves as crossdressers because they don't have a more suitable word to describe themselves. This is logically justified because they do crossdress sometimes.

There is a psychological trap here. If you are a guy who likes to visualize yourself as a woman but not much crazy about physical crossdressing, then if you label yourself as a crossdresser, that prevents you from going deeper into yourself and understanding your real inner nature. So I am, advocating the use of the words - "Crossdreaming"  and "Crossdreamer" !!!

Crossdreamer is a man who likes to imagine himself as a woman. Or a man who dreams of having a female body or female attributes (Please note that I am writing here only about male to female crossdreamers. There are plenty of female to male crossdreamers, but my experience restricts me from writing about it.).

Considering my experience, I never had a big urge to crossdress. I loved the idea of being a beautiful, humble, caring woman. I was the heroine of my own dreams. In some of my fantasies, I was a beautiful princess who is admired and loved by everyone. Sometimes, an evil witch comes and abuducts me and makes me her maid, with the intention of sactificing me at the end. Sometimes, the witch shows kindness to me seeing my feminine helplessness. But sometimes, the witch stays cruel and a prince charming comes and rescueues me!

Oops, I'm chattering too much into my fantasies (Silly girl, I am!). The point I wanted to make is that even though I had these fantasies, I was not attracted to wear female dress. I have done it a few times, just to appreciate myself as a woman in the mirror. But the source of joyful feeling did not originate from wearing a female dress, but it came from my mental image of myself as a woman. Because of this, I did not want to use the label "crossdresser" for myself, but liked to describe myself as a "male with a feminine side", until I read about the term "Crossdreamers". So, now I can say that I was a "Crossdreamer" !

There are genuine crossdreamers out there in the online world who wishes to share their fantasies and express themselves. A good reference would be the website http://www.crossdreamers.com/. Also, there is a genuine forum of crossdreamers - http://www.crossdreamlife.com/

Before concluding this post, something needs to be mentioned about a major psychology work in this area. An American psychologist Ray Blanchard introduced the term "Autogynephilia". He defined Autogynephilia as a condition in which a man is turned on by the thought of being a woman. Further information and criticisms of this theory is available out there in the internet.

Concluding, my attempt was just to invite the attention of readers to the concept of crossdreaming. And to suggest that some of you who consider yourselves as crossdressers may be just crossdreamers. I accept that there are genuine crossdressers who are passionate about wearing female dress. They are correct in describing themselves as crossdressers. But those who don't have a great passion for crossdressing but still have fantasies of being a female, could consider freeing themselves from an inaccurate label :-).

As I mentioned, the purpose of this blog is to share with my readers some of my humble thoughts and reflections from my inner journey. Identifying myself as a crossdreamer was a step in my journey which helped me look deeper into myself. I'll write more in the coming posts.

Regards,
Jaya

Purpose of this blog

Hi Readers,

This blog is dedicated to all men who have a fantasy of becoming a woman. Some of us try to actualize this fantasy by crossdressing. Some are brave and lucky enough to come out as a woman in public, and even to get a sex reassignment surgery. They are the brave ones for whom expressing their femininity is their destiny in life. They are brave enough to stand the intolerance of society and follow their dream. I have my admiration and respect for these brave girls!

But, there is a big majority who comes under my category - They have feminine fantasies, but they don't wish to reveal this to anyone. They don't want to come out as a crossdresser in public or do surgery to change their gender. One reason is that they have big responsibilities in life and fulfilling these responsibilities require them to be men. Eventhough they like the idea of imagining themselves as females and crossdressing occassionally, they have higher priorities in their life which demands them to be males. These type of people might end up in serious depression in long run, unless they deal with this emotional problem. They might become guilty about having these feminine fantasies. They might get addicted to these fantasies and lose focus on other areas of life.

I belonged to the second type mentioned above. I crossdressed occassionally, and dreamed of being a beautiful girl. I became addicted to these fantasies. But then these fantasies started making my dry out. I started feeling depressed for not being born as a girl. I started feeling that I am inefficient in my life and responsibilities because society expected me to be a true man. But I had my priorities in my life. I never wanted to cause any worry to my parents. And there is a girl who loves me very dearly, and I wanted to be the man of her life and make her happy. Also, success in my studies and career was a high priority for me. So, I was determined to find out how to make my life happy and not to let my feminine side make me feel guilty and inefficient. Then I took over a quest to find out ways to incorporate my feminine side into my normal life in a healthy way, so that it makes me a better person. I researched in web, did some thinking and reflection about myself and chatted with some CDs/TVs/TGs in the online world. My research took almost 3 years, but now I can confidently say that I am not worried about having a feminine side. I am not addicted to the feminine side either. Instead I have accepted that this "Inner woman" is a part of me and I am able to move on in my life.

This blog is intended to be a helping hand for all "men with a feminine side", who are going through the struggle I went through. I know many people are out there struggling in frustration and disappointment - trying to escape from real life, taking shelter in fantasy.  In the next posts, I will write down some helpful facts, information, web resources etc. which might be helpful. Also, I'll share some thoughts and reflections based on my experience.

One important thing is that I am not a psychiatrist or counselor and hence these posts should not be taken as "expert advice". Whatever I am writing here is purely based on the experiences I picked up during my personal journey of self discovery.I would be very happy if some of my struggling friends found the information in this blog helpful.

Wishing all of you a happy life!

With love,
Jaya