The Rest of the Story

Paula asked for the rest of the story regarding my 1983 Halloween photo accompanying Wednesday’s post, so here it is.

Newlyweds, we were invited to a Halloween party hosted by a co-worker about three months after The Great Purge of 1983.  I convinced my spouse to go as opposite genders, which required me to reacquire what I had purge.

It was 40 years ago, so my recollection is spotty. I do recall that I borrowed the cape from my sister-in-law (thank you, Helene) – I had to purchase everything else.

I was working in Danbury at the time and there was a wig shop conveniently located within walking distance of my office. So I sashayed over there one lunch hour and two young saleswomen dropped everything to help me when I revealed my plans for Halloween.

I asked to see some brunette wigs, but they insisted that I go blonde. As they say, “the customer is always wrong,” so I purchased the blonde wig you see in the photo.

I don’t recall where I purchased the dress, heels, hosiery or unmentionables. I also don’t recall what unmentionables I wore, nor what jewelry I wore.

I borrowed my wife’s makeup, did my face, got dressed and we headed out the night of the party. On arrival, I shocked everyone. One pretty cat woman, who I did not know, asked me, “Are you a guy?” And that was the highlight of the evening for me!

Word got around at work on Monday and one of my wise guy co-workers asked, “Do you like boys?”

I retorted, “Why? Do you want a date?”

And so it goes!

Wearing Boston Proper

Bill Kaulitz

But what about the girdle?

Wearing Boston Proper

Nigerian femulator JP Blush

The Great Purge of 1983

I started femulating regularly around the age of 12. Whenever I was home alone, I would experiment with my mother's and sister's wardrobes and cosmetics. 

Soon, I began building my own female wardrobe. Initially, I collected discarded clothing or sewed my own (simple A-line miniskirts) using remnants that my mother had in her sewing nook. 

The first item of female clothing that I purchased were three pairs of nylon stockings. I went to the hosiery store downtown and told the saleswoman that I was buying stockings as a gift for my tall girlfriend. The saleswoman did not bat an eye and I scored my first purchase of female finery with ease. 

After that successful shopping trip, I used my tall girlfriend excuse to expand my wardrobe. And whenever Halloween was on the horizon, I could use that holiday as an excuse to try on and buy wigs, dresses, shoes and foundation garments. 

In addition to building a wardrobe, I clipped femulation-related items from newspapers and magazines. I also had a couple of books including the eye-opening A Year Among the Girls by Darryl Radnor and a couple of issues of Drag magazine. And there was also my collection of Polaroids, which documented my progress aboard the Good Ship Lollipop. 

I stored everything in boxes hidden behind boxes containing my American Flyer train set, all stored behind the false back panel of a built-in bookcase in my bedroom. 

Due to that limited storage space, I occasionally whittled down my collection – out with the old to make room for the new – but I never purged everything while I was actively femulating. I loved being a girl, so there was no desire to purge. 

Fast-forward to 1983. 

I had been dating my future wife for over two years and during that time, I stopped femulating. I had no desire to femulate and I bought into the old wives’/husbands’ tale that when a femulator got married, he stopped femulating. 

Realize that there was little information available to vent that tale. There was no Internet as we know it today and the serious literature on the topic was minimal and hard to find in my neck of the woods. 

So about two weeks before our wedding, I purged everything. 

One month after our wedding, we were invited to a Halloween party. I femulated for the event (see photo) and bought a new dress, wig, pantyhose, bra, girdle, high heels, etc. for the occasion. I was back on the Good Ship Lollipop and never stopped femulating again. 

In retrospect, I so regret the purge. I could replace the wardrobe (which I did), but I could never replace my Polaroids.

Wearing Boston Proper

Thiago Fragoso femulating on Brazilian television’s Sexo Fragil.

Not at All!

Wearing Ann Taylor

Karol Dziuba and Maurycy Popiel femulate Baccara on Polish television’s Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo (Your Face Sounds Familiar). View this femulation on YouTube by clicking here.

Monday Mix

Rue La La

My last two online purchases were from Rue La La. They sell overstocked items at substantial discounts. My recent purchases were two designer name dresses that originally cost $128 each. I paid $59 for one and $40 for the other with  free shipping.

The second dress (image right) was originally discounted to $69. I viewed it online a couple of times, but did not buy it. Rue La La knew my history and when they lowered the price to $40, they sent me an email informing me of the new price and I pounced!

They used USPS and it took 7 to 10 days to arrive. I have not had to return anything, so I don’t know how well their returns work.

Anyway, I am a happy customer and will continue shopping with Rue La La.

Tucking

I mentioned in my Look Ma, No Pants! post that tucking effectively is important for girls like us who try wear tights for pants. I wrote about tucking a year ago, so you may want to refer to that post if you are tucking for the first time.

In my case, what I have to tuck is modest in size, so your mileage may vary, but I have had a lot of success by simply wearing panty girdles and spandex bikini-style panties (not at the same time, and the tighter, the better).

17 Years

The first post of this blog appeared 17 years ago today. During that time, there have been 5990 posts that have been viewed 29,881,632 times!

And so it goes.

Wearing Boston Proper

Maurycy Popiel femulating Debbie Harry on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajom (Your Face Sound Familiar). Click here to view this excellent femulation on YouTube.

Look Ma, No Pants!

Commenting on Tuesday’s post, Michells asked for opinions about the latest fashion trend: wearing tights as pants, that is, just wearing tights or pantyhose without pants or trousers or other bifurcated garment.

Responding to the comment, I mentioned that I had gone out so dressed years ago. The accompanying photo shows me wearing tights and no pants. 

I recall that when I did it, I thought that there was not much difference between wearing tights without pants and wearing leggings, so I went for it and visited a mall so dressed (or undressed). I felt a little naughty and a little sexy at the time. Yet I don’t recall any reactions positive or negative from civilians I encountered.

That was 18 years ago. At 72+, I still have the legs to pull it off, but at that age, I probably shouldn’t do it.

Anyway, a word of advice if you plan to go out wearing tights as pants: effective tucking is paramount for girls like us. I can’t think of any fashion statement where thorough tucking is more important!

Wearing Bebe

Paolo Ballesteros, Christian Bables and Martin del Rosario femulating in the 2019 Filipino film The Panti Sisters.

How much ground could a groundhog grind if a groundhog could grind ground?

Wearing Allsaints

Ken Carson

Yet Another Photo

Responding to Tuesday’s post, readers asked about the photo I submitted for inclusion in the Hamvention program when I won an award in 2016. So here is the photo and the accompanying blurb about the award.

The Special Achievement Award recognizes WA1LOU as an advocate for cutting edge technologies that are now commonly used in amateur radio. Stan authored five books and wrote over 1,200 pieces for the ARRL and TAPR while evangelizing the use of home computers, packet radio, APRS, Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Software Defined Radio (SDR) in amateur radio. Licensed in 1969 as WN1LOU, Stan has sampled almost every entrée on the ham radio menu and served in a slew of roles including Section Manager of Connecticut. Presently, Stan is a director and secretary for TAPR and serves as editor of TAPR’s newsletter (PSR). “LOU” has driven the 735 miles to Hamvention most years since 1978 and looks forward to doing so forever. “My fondest memories of ham radio are rubbing elbows and making friends with the makers and shakers of our hobby who show up at Hamvention every year.”

Back at work after returning home from Hamvention, a woman in my group who works from home e-mailed me to ask about my vacation. I told her I went to Hamvention and took home the Special Achievement Award.

Ten minutes later, she e-mailed me that she had never heard of it, so she looked up the Hamvention website and saw the write-up about the award.

Uh-oh!

If she saw the write-up, she must have seen my photo next to it. But she did not mention the photo, so I assumed she was being polite and did not want to embarrass me.

She is a good friend who I have known for years and I did not want to make her feel uncomfortable, so I e-mailed her back, “I guess the cat is out of the bag.”

Her response was vague, so I asked her if she saw my photo.

“No, I didn’t see your picture. I saw the photos of the other winners and I was looking for yours, but I did not see it,” she replied, “Let me look again.”

Fifteen minutes later, she wrote, “OMG!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn’t find you. I was staring at this beautiful lady and didn’t see you! Duh! YOU are the beautiful lady!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !! I was staring at your photo for like 10 minutes… Damn, your presentation is amazing!”

And so it goes!

Wearing Elisabetta Franchi

Sven Schelker femulating in the Swiss film The Circle.

Our Photos

As a group, we probably take more photos of ourselves than most (all?) other groups. On the other hand, most of us keep all those photos under wraps for our self-gratification. (Adds a new dimension to the word “selfie.”)

As a blogger writing about crossdressing, I receive emails with photo attachments from other crossdressers. More often than not, the emailers ask me not to share their photos here or anywhere else. Some of these folks are closeted and don’t want any exposure of their feminine persona. While some are not so closeted, but still want to limit their exposure. 

I am sympathetic. I took as many photos of myself as any other crossdresser, but I was loathe to allow someone else to take my photo for their own collection. (Who knew where my photos might show up?) However, the more I got out among the civilians, the less discreet I was about my photographed image. 

I wear eyeglasses in boy mode, but usually chuck the glasses in girl mode. One day, browsing the racks at Macy’s, I encountered a female co-worker and she did not recognize the boy without glasses under the female finery. So I was convinced that I did not have to worry about someone making the connection between my male and female identities.

I often posted my image in the blog. And when I received a Special Achievement Award at the world’s biggest ham radio convention and was asked to submit a photo for the convention program, I did not think twice I did not think twice and sent my en femme photo, which appeared in the program for 30,000 convention attendees to see. It was one thing to post my image here for a handful of sister crossdressers to see, but it was another thing to permit 30,000 civilians to see me en femme. 

The proverbial cat was out of the bag! But it was liberating and one less thing to worry about.

Wearing Ann Taylor

Elijah Wood, drummer (not actor)

A Cover-Up

Wearing Bardot

Danny La Rue, professional femulator, circa 1950

A Monday Mix

Got Velcro?

Velcro to the Rescue

I recently purchased a wrap dress online. It fit fine, but when I sat down, the snap that held the wrap in place would pop open and the portion of the dress under wrap would gradually become loose and the dress would unwrap. The problem is that the snap is tiny and does not have much holding power. And/or when I sat down, my voluptuous figure bulged just enough to open the snap.

A button in place of the snap would solve the problem, but I don’t know how to make a button hole, so that solution is not a solution.

A few years ago, I had a similar situation with a different wrap dress and I fixed the problem with Velcro – the kind with a sticky back that adheres to just about everything. So I cut a quarter inch piece, then attached the Velcro pieces next to the male and female parts of the snap. Then I put the dress on, sat down and the snap and Velcro combination held.

Wrinkles Be Gone

As an Avon Lady, I sample a lot of Avon products. One that I am raving about these days is Anew Clinical Line Eraser with Retinol Treatment. I apply it every morning after cleansing my face, but before I apply moisturizer and I am ecstatic over the results. 

According to the product blurb, “Clinically shown to reduce the look of fine lines and wrinkles in just days.” And it’s true. Days after I started using the product, I noticed that the wrinkles around my eyes lessened and now they are for all purposes gone – I have to look real close to find them.

Otokonoko

For years, I’ve heard that crossdressing is popular in Japan. I don’t know how popular, but Mikki and Paula alerted me to a YouTube video that explores some of the Japanese crossdressing culture. The video is interesting and worth watching (it’s only 5 minutes long). Click here to view it.

Wearing StyleWe

Jennifer AKA J.J. Atwell of "Stuff" fame