Effeminacy

Angela shopping

By Angela Booth

Angela wrote the following in response to my recent posts about being effeminate.

I wonder if you carry a hammer around as you keep hitting the nail on the head. 

As a child, I was innocent to the ways of the world and knew that I liked women for what clothes they wore and I enjoyed wearing them, too. Society at that time did not respect any deviations like that. You were considered gay, which was illegal back then, or a sissy boy. Oddly, drag queens were revered and camp characters were seen as fun. Express a desire to crossdress and you were down in the pit of hell.

Like you, I was not good at sports and was bullied because I wasn’t manly and seemed to prefer the company of girls. I was never a manly man as I had these feminine traits. Being of small stature with blond curly hair didn’t help either. It did help with crossdressing though. I did what I had to do to gain acceptance.

Whatever I did, I couldn’t shake those feminine traits or desire to be feminine in appearance. I began to like women in a sexual way, but still wanted to dress like them. 

I still retained those feminine aspects, this effeminacy as you rightly say. This was endearing to women and they appreciated you for listening, understanding or being empathetic, but put some off because I wasn’t the ‘man’ they wanted. Such was this empathy I was once told that I should have been born a girl! I wondered if I was.

Embracing crossdressing has been the answer for me, too. It compliments my nature and is quite natural. I got over any guilt and, like you, live a happier life. 

UPDATE: I updated the link for the Femulator video below.

Wearing ModCloth

Piotr Gawron-Jedlikowski femulating C.C. Catch on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo. You can view this amazing femulation on Facebook.

Will Men Over 50 Soon Be Wearing Bras?

In 2007, Mike deHavilland Parker wrote an article for UK Apologetics that I just discovered a few days ago.

Parker wrote, “the primary sex hormones are oestrogen and testosterone. Men and women have both of them. But the main masculine hormone is testosterone (called such because in men it is produced in the testicles); most younger men have it in abundance! But as men and women age, a strange thing happens. Women start to lose their dominant oestrogen hormone, but they also lose their testosterone and progesterone. So women start to lose all of these hormones. With men it is different, but nobody can explain why. As men age, they lose their more masculine testosterone, sometimes quite quickly, but their oestrogen levels start rising! So, it would not be entirely wrong to say that as men get older, they tend to become more feminine, or womanly, and this is because they start producing more oestrogen - which is the primary female sex hormone.”

The author explains that men are also under attack from xenoestrogens, natural and synthetic hormones that imitate oestrogen. Synthetic xenoestrogens include some industrial compounds, such as PCBs, BPA, and phthalates and can affect younger men as well as older men.

Parker suggests that the increase of female sex hormones in men may account for the increase in male-to-female transsexuality.

The author also wonders, “Will many men over about 50 be wearing a bra by 2107 (that is, a hundred years from now)? And will we eventually simply come to accept this as just another difference between younger and older men? Or will breast-removal surgery become highly common for older men? (Make no mistake that if normal rising oestrogen levels in middle aged/older men continue to be increasingly joined by xeno-oestrogens - which are almost everywhere - more and more men will certainly develop female-type breasts with advancing years).

And “Will society eventually have to accept such older men as ‘fe-men,’ or by some other descriptive name?”

Wearing Venus

Blogger Rhonda of Rhonda's Escape fame

Still Feminine after All These Years

I want to visit my effeminacy one more time because I received comments from a few readers who believe that I can turn my effeminacy on and off at will.

I assure you that is not the case. I am and always was a feminine being (according to society’s standards). It is not an act.

I am not a flamboyant feminine male. I don't walk around with a limp wrist while carrying a purse in boy mode. But I am feminine enough that some people have noticed and thought I was gay. 

As a result, I attracted gay men and turned off women who I wanted to date in my youth. Which was very frustrating because I was unaware of my effeminacy. I was just acting naturally – being myself, but that “self ” was feminine. Only after I saw myself in that video did I realize how feminine I really was. 

Thank Goddess I discovered crossdressing. It was a good fit and perfect outlet for this feminine being. And once I got over the guilt, presenting as a woman were some of the happiest times in my life.  

Wearing ModCloth

Blogger Marian, who dots her I’s and crosses her T’s online

Someday Funnies

Wearing Boston Proper

Blogger Kandi of Kandi's Land fame

New on My Lips

I am always willing to try something new especially in the cosmetics cosmo. And as an Avon Lady, I see new cosmetics all the time.

I use Avon lipsticks exclusively, so recently I was intrigued by a new line of lipsticks offered by Avon. Called “Flat Velvet Lipstick,” the packaging is different from any other lipstick I have ever used. Rather than your typical cylindrical lipstick in a tube (like the Femulate Her banner below), Flat Velvet Lipstick has a rounded rectangular tip (see picture).

When I apply lipstick from the classic cylindrical tube, I use a flat lipstick brush to transfer the lipstick from the tube to my lips. I do so in order to get better coverage and to apply the lipstick more accurately along the lip line. I thought that flat tip of the new Avon lipstick might work similarly to the brush. Also, Avon claimed “the innovative tip prevents colors from feathering or bleeding,” which is a very good feature.

I ordered a Flat Velvet Lipstick in London Red, tried it and liked it. It allowed me to put the lipstick where I wanted it, so I can eliminate using a lipstick brush. And as Avon also claimed, the “silky texture glides over lips filling up fine lines and creating a smooth, wrinkle-free finish.”

I was very happy with the Flat Velvet Lipstick and ordered it in two additional colors, Rose Pink and Darjeeling Red. I can‘t wait to wear it out – it will look lovely when I remove my mask!

Wearing Likely

Blogger Cyrsti Hart of Cyrsti's Condo fame

How Effeminate?

Most of my life, civilians considered me to be effeminate. The more obnoxious civilians let me know it, mostly with verbal abuse, but a few times, physical abuse. 

I did not believe I was effeminate. I did not purposely act feminine – I was acting naturally and I assumed the bullies were picking on me because I had better grades in school than most of my male peers and/or because I was not a great athlete. 

The “effeminate” label persisted and when I began crossdressing, I thought that maybe there was something to it. This was brought home to me when I attended a Halloween party en femme and a friend mentioned to me that he never realized how feminine I was until he saw me dressed as a woman, my appearance now matched my speech and mannerisms.

That and similar experiences finally convinced me that I was effeminate, but I never knew how effeminate. I never saw my feminine self in person, so I was just accepting what others witnessed.

Fast forward to May 2018, when I spoke at a forum at the ham radio convention I attend every year. The forum was videotaped and I anxiously waited for the video to be posted on YouTube so I could see my feminine self in person.

Two weeks later, the video showed up on YouTube and when I watched it, I was shocked by how feminine I appeared. How I moved, how I gestured and how I spoke were so feminine that I could not believe it. If anything, I lost points because of my voice, but the way I used my voice was the way a woman spoke and when you put the whole package together, that was a woman up on that dais, not a man in a dress. 

Even today when I view that video, I am still impressed by the lady I see.*

* You can see me for yourself on YouTube beginning at the 6:41 mark.

Wearing Adrianna Papell

Blogger Diana and friend. Diana blogs daily in her Little Corner in the Nutmeg State.

Bagged Cat

Squeaky

“That cat wasn't let out of the bag, it was yanked out!” – Fred Mertz

Exchanging e-mails and reading your comments about my Validation post brought to mind more thoughts on the subject.

Receiving a comment like “You look better than most women I know” is validating with regards to the way you look – your outfit, hair, makeup, etc. But is the commenter saying “As a crossdresser, you look better than most women I know” or is the commenter saying “As a woman, you look better than most women I know.” The former indicates that the commenter read you as a male, while the latter indicates that your femulation is working and the commenter believes that you are a cisgender female. 

Both interpretations are validating, but the former is definitely preferable to the latter. You'll never know for sure which is the case unless you broach that topic with the commenter. But why ruin a good thing and let the cat out of the bag. 

Not following this advice, I yanked the cat out of the bag on more than one occasion.

I believe I often pass at a distant, but not so much up close and personal. I assume that face-to-face, too many clues are apparent that give me away. In the past, with that in the back of my mind, I did not think twice if I said something that indicated that I was cisgender male.

About half the time when I gave myself away, I was surprised that the person I just clued in had no idea I was a guy! My femulation was good enough to convince them that I was really a woman! As a result, I have learned to bite my tongue when I feel a clue about to escape my mouth and just assume my femulation is working.

Wearing Ranna Gill

Blogger Hannah McKnight

I'm Batgirl

My favorite comic book superhero was Batman. Whereas the other superheroes had all the super powers, Batman had all the cool gadgets, a cool costume, headquartered in a cave and used the bat for his symbol ― can't get much cooler than that!

Pop worked in the comic book factory that printed the Marvel line of comic books, but he had to have a kid who preferred a character from DC, a competing line of comic books. I appreciated the Marvel superheroes and read many of their books religiously, but Batman was always Number 1.

Fast-forward to Halloween 1995 and in honor of my favorite superhero, I attended my support group's Halloween party dressed as my version of Batgirl. 

 

Wearing Andrew Gn

Simon Hanselmann, cartoonist

Validation

Some people seemed concerned that when they receive a compliment about their appearance (“You look great”), the person making the compliment is really saying, “You look great... for a crossdresser.”

So? I would rather look “great” for a crossdresser than look lousy for a crossdresser!

I appreciate any compliment I receive, whether the person making the compliment reads me as a crossdresser or not. Perhaps, the nicest compliment I have ever received was, “You look better than most women I know.”

You can't get much better validation than that!

Wearing Andrew Gn

Shingo Katori femulating in the 1997 Japanese film Hong Kong Night Club.

Someday Funnies

Wearing Venus

Lee Tergesen femulating on televisions' Drop Dead Divas.