Just for Fun

I femulate because I am a male woman. But there is a growing contingent of born-males who femulate just for fun (or so they say). I am referring to the male-to-female crossplayers (crossdressing cosplayers) and their sisters, the brolitas (boy lolitas).

"Cosplay, a contraction of the words costume play, is a performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character" from "manga and anime, comic books and cartoons, video games, and live-action films and television series." (source: Wikipedia)

Crossplay is crossdressing cosplay. Most crossplay is of the female-to-male variety, however, more and more guys are getting into the act: male-to-female crossplaying.

Meanwhile, "Lolita is a fashion subculture originating in Japan that is based on Victorian and Edwardian clothing." (source: Wikipedia)

Brolitas are males, who dress like lolitas, that is, they crossdress wearing extremely feminine Victorian/Edwardian/Gothic clothing. Some brolitas are male-to-female crossplayers.

I don't know what to make of brolitas and male-to-female crossplayers. Some of their femulations look perfect. Having never met one in person, I don't know if their voices and mannerisms match what they are wearing, but I imagine some do and some don't.

I question if it is really just for fun?

My guess is that like the contestants in womanless beauty pageants and womanless fashion shows, there are a few participants who are not civilians. Rather, they are trans-something and crossplaying/brolitaing is a safe way to express their feminine side without outing themselves.

I wish I had that option when I was younger!

Male-to-Female Crossplayers of Note:

Brolitas Who Impress:

Wearing Metrostyle.

Dylan Jenkins (right) femulates on British television's Hollyoaks (2015).

Crossplay = Cosplay + Crossdress

Tuesday's Femulator photo depicted a male-to-female crossplayer. I received a few responses to that photo which indicated that some readers of Femulate are not familiar with crossplay.

Simply stated, crossplay is crossdressed cosplay.

It seems that there is more female-to-male crossplaying than male-to-female crossplaying, however, a lot of the guys who crossplay are top-notch femulators! (I should look so good!)

To see what I mean, visit Men of Crossplay and be amazed!

 

 

 

Wearing Bebe.

 

 

 

Male crossplayer femulating Kiryuin Satsuki (Kill la Kill).

Memory Lane

While poking the Internet looking for trans-related stuff, I occasionally come upon images from Deviantart. Weeks ago, when I viewed my umpteenth Deviantart trans-related image, I decided to check out the web site for myself and in doing so, I found a motherlode of trans-related art, photos, and texts. (For example, a search on the word "crossdress" on Deviantart turned up over 11 thousand items!)

Anime, manga, role-playing, cosplay, etc. dominate Deviantart. Since I am not very familiar with those worlds, some of the references escaped me, but crossdressing is crossdressing and I appreciate the trans-related Deviantart works nonetheless.

After spending hours browsing Deviantart, I decided that my favorite work is a piece created by rocketdave titled Memory Lane. Its caption reads, “As he feared, introducing his girlfriend to his mother results in the revelation of certain aspects of his childhood he would have preferred remain buried.”

Memory Lane appears at the top of this blog.

crossplay

While digging the Internet yesterday, I viewed some photos of the costumed attendees at this past weekend's San Diego Comic Con. As an old comic book and science fiction fan, as well as a costume maker and wearer, I find the work that some of the attendees put into their costumes amazing.

Looking at the hundreds of photos online, my T-Dar kicked in and I believe I spotted a few males in female cosplay costume.

I have seen males in female cosplay costumes on a handful of occasions in the past, but it seemed to be more prevalent at the Comic-Con. This piqued my interest, so I decided to investigate and it did not take long to find out about the phenomena called "crossplay."

According to Wikipedia, "crossplay is cosplay in which the person dresses up as a character of the opposite gender." It is more popular with female cosplayers, but it is has picked up momentum among male cosplayers, too.

I poked around the Internet to find out more and a simple search of flickr on the word "crossplay" turned up 1200 photos like the one of Steve (above) dressed as a maid (note the convincing cleavage).

I also found a forum on Cosplay.com that reminds me of the forums I've seen on crossdressing Web sites covering such topics as how to tuck (for guys) and how to bind (for gals), how to add curves (for guys) and how to hide curves (for gals), and for guys and gals both, which bathroom to use?

Sometimes, it seems like I live in a cave and have to get out more. I knew nothing about crossplay until yesterday and now I am fascinated by the subject.

Although teenagers and young adults seem to represent the majority of cosplayers/crossplayers, older adults are participating, too. So, my age would not prevent me from crossplaying and the best part is that I would not have to dress my age!