Someday Funnies: Too Tall to Pass

Wearing New York & Company

A womanless bridal party – I believe that all of the members of the bridal party are femulators, but a non-femulator might have snuck in there.

Feeling Pretty and Gender Euphoria

By Paula Gaikowski

Here’s a paragraph from one my first articles on Femulate, “Frequent Flier.”

“I let the warm water of the shower melt away any uncertainty. The feminine scent of the shaving cream and the unveiled smoothness of my legs quiet me. I feel her take hold inside me. I dry myself off, then spray on some perfume, I breath the fragrance in, the scent is satisfying, almost like a drug. I feel it trigger certain parts of my brain as if they were dormant, but now are called to life, they burst forward igniting senses and desires no longer forced hidden.”

Gender euphoria is the emotional state of happiness and comfort that happens when our gender expression is aligned with our identity. I identify as a woman, ever since I can remember. My path in life has always been clouded with this conundrum. 

One of those metaphorical clouds has been the overpowering need to crossdress and along with it, joy and sensual pleasure. Yes, shaving my legs, wearing perfume, makeup, pantyhose and lingerie made me feel pretty, feminine and even sexy. The gatekeepers of the 80’s and 90’s held that this was proof of a fetish; I was made to feel that this deeply held feelings was nothing more than a kink or worse a perversion. Transgender women seeking transition learned to deny and hide these feelings. 

I’ve always believed that cisgender women also find pleasure in feeling feminine and pretty. I went to a sub on Reditt named askwomen. All I did was search the sub for “feeling pretty,”“feeling feminine” and “feeling sexy.”

The results were eye-opening. Essentially cisgender women have very much the same emotional response that we do when it comes to wearing lingerie, shaving, wearing make-up and perfume. It brings them joy, they feel pretty, feminine, girly and sexy. I’ve included a sample of responses from scores of women. I feel vindicated and validated that my needs and desires are very much like any other woman. 

“Matching underwear. Sometimes putting on a cute bra and matching panties makes me feel like a million bucks.”

“I think I often feel super pretty after I’ve taken a long shower (washed my hair, shaved legs and put on my favorite lipstick.”

“I personally get anxiety attacks after shower because of how ugly I look with wet hair. I look like a man”

“I love to dress up and do my make up together with my friends”

“Playing dress-up is great too, I like to put on my clothes and try to make new outfits. Sometimes I'll dress up nice and just go to the grocery store, although you have to be careful with that otherwise you feel kind of overdressed and self-conscious.”

“I like to dress in a very feminine style with dresses, makeup, and high heels. Ever since the start of the pandemic still I like to put on makeup and dress nicely just so I can feel pretty about myself even if I spend the entire day stuck in my house.”

“I wear my fav lace lingerie under my regular clothes..idk why but lingerie always improves my low self esteem.  It’s the best feeling honestly.” 

“I do this too (Wear lace lingerie), because then at the end of the day when I get undressed it’s like “Ah, there’s the real me!”

“Have my nails/toenails painted all the time”

“To feel pretty and feminine the, first one is definitely wearing heels. I also love to curl my hair, wear a sexy but comfy dress. lipstick is also really important to me”

“Shower, shave, moisturize, cute outfit (ideally a colorful dress and tights), well-blended glamorous eyeshadow, winged eyeliner, bold lipstick, lovely perfume, go out and smile at passersby.”

“Matching underwear. Never underestimate how sexy and beautiful you'll feel when you have a cute bra on and panties that match. I only buy bras that are a part of a matching set and have another few pairs of panties that match/go with that bra.”

“When I feel down and not so pretty, I'll take hours to get ready. Take a long bath, shave, put on nice underwear and some of my favorite clothes, curl my hair or do an elaborate up-do, and then do my make up.”

Wearing Venus

Modern Male and Female

Someday Funnies: Happy New You!

Wearing Samantha Sung

Womanless beauty pageant contestant Lucky 13

Someday Funnies: Happy New Year!

Wearing Wig.com

Phillippe Nicaud femulating in the 1959 French film Come Dance With Me.

Regarding My “Christmas Eve Surprise” Post

Regarding my “Christmas Eve Surprise” post, it is a true story until you get to the part where I finally decide to attend my family’s Christmas Eve dinner en femme.

Believe me, I thought about it. When would I have the opportunity to come out to my whole family again? Especially since I believe that the 2022 reunion was a one-time event. But there was no way that I could pull it off with my current health. 

My left knee is worse than ever. Walking is painful even wearing male footwear. Walking in high heels is impossible. To fix the problem, I will have knee replacement surgery at the end of January. So wish me well.

Regarding the fictional part of my “Christmas Eve Surprise” post, it may not be so fictional. Cousin “Jack” is based on a cousin whose father was known to dress pretty on occasion. And I actually witnessed my cousin “Jack” as a tween modeling various discarded dance school recital outfits that had been worn previously by two female cousins. As they say, the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree, so you never know!

Wearing Venus

Pretty femulator out and about

Someday Funnies: December Bride

Wearing Venus

Paulette is hoping your Christmas is a happy one and the New Year is prosperous and peaceful.

Lena sends her holiday wishes from Down Under.

Christmas Eve Surprise

Growing up, my father’s family gathered at his sisters’/my aunts’ home for Christmas Eve dinner. With eight uncles and aunts and their children/my cousins and as time passed, my cousins’ children, it was quite a crowd. 

It was always a fun reunion, but it came to an abrupt end about 20 years ago when my aging aunts threw in the towel. It was more than they could handle as they approached their eighties. 

During the ensuing years, my parents and most of my uncles and aunts died. Meanwhile, many of my cousins moved out of state. There was talk of organizing Christmas Eve reunions, but nothing ever came of it. 

However, in the past few years, my out-of-state cousins moved back to Connecticut and around Thanksgiving, my cousin Jack phoned me wondering if I’d help him organize a Christmas Eve reunion to be held at my surviving aunt’s home – just like the good old days. My aunt would not have to lift a finger; her nieces and nephews would put it all together. So I marked my calendar for a Christmas Eve reunion and did my part. 

Although I was close to most of my cousins, none of them knew about Stana. I had not come out to that side of my family and was hesitant to do so because I was the oldest cousin. By default, my cousins looked up to me and I did not want to ruin their image of me... the oldest and more importantly, male cousin.

Coming out to them was on my to-do list and the reunion would provide an opportunity to come out to them all at once. I considered how well coming out to my co-workers had gone even though they were used to knowing my male side for nearly a quarter century. I thought that maybe my family would be just as accepting: it is just old cousin Stan with a greatly improved fashion sense. I thought about it for a few days and decided to do it if my wife was okay with it. 

After 40 years of marriage to a femulator, my wife had seen it all and my Christmas Eve coming out idea was like water off a duck’s back. She said go for it and now came the hard part: deciding what to wear.

Since no one at the reunion had ever seen me en femme, I could wear anything from my vast wardrobe and it would be new to them. But I wanted to wear something I had never wore out before, so that narrowed the selection to about 20 dresses. Considering the frigid weather forecast for Christmas Eve, that eliminated all my short sleeve and sleeveless dresses, so the pickings got slimmer.

I finally settled on a turquoise three-quarter sleeve peplum dress that I purchased from Avon years ago, but had never worn because it was too tight. Now that I was 30 pounds slimmer, it was a perfect fit. I accessorized with my snakeskin Nine West four-inch high heels pearl jewelry. To top it off, I wore my three-quarter-length lynx fake fur from Lane Bryant. I thought I looked very presentable for my unveiling.

My wife and I got in the Subaru and I drove across town to my aunt’s home. Arriving at my aunt’s, I noticed all the vehicles parked in her driveway and on the street in from of her home. I assumed everyone had already arrived, so I would have a big audience for my grand entrance.

We exited my car and walked the short walk up the handicapped ramp to my aunt’s front door, rang the doorbell and someone opened the door to let us in. My wife entered first with me right behind with a nervous smile pasted on my face.

The front room was crowded with aunts, cousins and their kids and as I entered, I heard my cousin Sandra say, “Holy s**t!” Always the sharpest pencil in the box, Sandra recognized me immediately, but it took awhile for the others to get a clue. If my wife had not accompanied me, I think a few would have never figured me out.

All eyes were on me and I heard a couple of wows from the crowd and my Aunt Candace remarked, “Stanley, you are beautiful!”

Cousin Billy took our coats and one by one, each cousin congratulated me with handshakes and hugs (from the guys) and air kisses and hugs from the women. 

The children of my cousins remained clueless. I might have seen them briefly on Christmas Eve 20 or more years ago, but except for some family resemblance, they were unrecognizable to me. However, they were polite and accepted me as the lady with an unusual female name (Stanley). 

No one asked me if I used a female name and everyone called me Stanley, Stan, Stash or Stashu, the latter two being Polish nicknames for Stanley.

Cousin Sandra apologized for her earlier exclamation. She admitted that she only reacted that way because I was the second coming out she had to deal with that day. With that, she said, “Let me introduce you to Jacqueline.” With that, she waved over a pretty woman who I assumed was a neighbor, who I did not recognize or know. 

“Hi Jacqueline. Pleased to meet you.”

“Pleased to meet you too, Stana. You probably know me better as your cousin Jack.”

“OMG,” I thought, “My cousin Jack is a crossdresser, too. But how did he know my femme name?”

“I’m a big fan and read your blog everyday,” he remarked, “Your blog helped me come out to the family today.”

Suddenly, I was distracted because my feet felt like they were entangled in something. And they were entangled in something: the skirt of my nightie. So I untangled my feet and fell back to sleep.

Wearing Venus

Eve is reddy for the holidays

Mindy posing in her favorite Christmas dress near the tree.

Someday Funnies: Not So Funny!

Wearing Bebe

Hostess Gloria on outy at Mardi Gras Hotel, Blackpool, England

Jim shopping at Macy’s again. (Jim wants the red dress on the mannequin.)

Post-Christmas Post

For tomorrow’s post, I am posting a Someday Funnies caption about panicking when I could not find my car keys in my purse. This actually happened to me once when I was  in Dayton, Ohio, to attend my ham radio group’s board meeting the night before Hamvention.

After the board meeting, everyone scattered to return to their hotel rooms throughout the Dayton area. As I was about to scatter, I searched through my purse trying too find my car keys and came up empty. I began to panic since I was 750 miles away from my second set of keys!

After panicking for about 15 minutes, I finally dumped the contents of my purse on a table and, voila!, my keys were in the contents.

I learned my lesson and after that episode, I always stored my keys in one of those zippered or buttoned pockets inside most of our handbags. 

For my Christmas Day post, I created a retro Christmas card in honor of the girls of Casa Susanna. My card was based on the card designs used by some of the girls at Casa Susanna back in the early 1960’s.

I hope you all had a great holiday weekend! One more to go!   

Wearing Joie

Grace under the Christmas tree

Julie Elliot celebrating the holidays at her home in Aberdeen, Scotland