Friday, December 6, 2013

Snowball

dress_him_up_once_v8

In my opinion, as more males dress up as females, it encourages other males who are on the cusp to dress up as females. It is a snowball effect.

In the early 1960s, I was on the cusp. I was a feminine boy, but I had never dressed. Except for comics on television and actors in films, males dressing as females was unheard of in my little world.  Dressing as a female myself never even crossed my mind… until one Halloween.

I recall visiting my aunts' house on Halloween dressed as the Frankenstein Monster. My aunts were all aflutter about a neighborhood boy who had visited them earlier that evening dressed as a girl. He even wore stockings and high heels! Suddenly, dressing as a female myself crossed my mind.

Another Halloween, Billy, my best friend in grammar school urged me to join him trick-or-treating that year. He told me that he dressed as a girl the previous Halloween, planned to dress as a girl again this Halloween and suggested that I dress as a girl, too. I was intrigued, but as feminine as I was, I was not ready to dress as a female because I feared what people would think if I did dress up. (By the way, after adding a lot of twos and twos together, I am certain that Billy was transgender.)

About this time, I was exposed to female impersonators.

My father bought the New York Daily News every day and I noticed that at the end of the week, probably in the Thursday or Friday edition of the News, there would be a thumbnail-sized ad in the back pages of the paper that caught my eye. The ad always consisted of a photo of a gorgeous showgirl that was captioned "Who's No Lady?"

The gorgeous showgirl was no lady, but a female impersonator and the ad was for the 82 Club in New York City, a nightclub that featured female impersonators. I was amazed that males could look like the showgirls featured in those ads. I was so fascinated with the transformation that I began cutting out the ads from the newspaper and collecting them with a paperclip.

Then home alone one day, I started on a voyage that has never ended. I went to my parents' bedroom, found a pair of my my mother's nylon stockings and tried them on. This was so long ago that the stockings had seams (all stockings had seams back then) and my legs were still hairless.

After I slipped on the stockings, I opened my mother's closet to see how my legs looked in the full-length mirror hanging on the inside of the closet door. My legs still looked like my own legs except now they were covered by nylon.

Then it occurred to me that my mother's shoe collection was at my disposal inside the closet. I slipped on a pair of her high heel pumps and examined myself in the mirror again. My legs were no  longer boys'  legs encased in nylon; they had been transformed into a pair of shapely legs that any woman would die for!

After that eye-opener, I experimented with my mother's girdles, bras, dresses, hats, gloves, lipstick, rouge, etc. and got caught up in a snowball that has never stopped growing.

 

femulator-new 

 

82_club_pc

A postcard depicting the professional femulators of
New York City’s 82 Club (also known as “Club 82”), circa 1965.

 

femulator-her-new

 

 

Source: ideeli

Wearing Costa Blanca (skirt).

7 comments:

  1. I agree - it only takes a little push and you find yourself covered in lace and frills and satin! For me it was Flip Wilson and "Geraldine". But the devil didn't make me do it, I chose to do it! ~~giggle~~

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had the exact same experience as you, Stana. Sometime around the same time I found "A Year Among The Girls" It really opened my eyes. I, of course, did the same dress up with my Mom's clothes...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stana,
    I too feared wearing girls clothes even before I knew I felt different than most boys. I shut down a skit in the Cub Scouts because I refused to be one of the girls they needed. If only I knew more about myself back then (about 52 or 53 years ago). Of course, as you said, the world was different back then and my enjoying it would have been viewed even more negatively than some still experience today.

    ReplyDelete
  4. If you want to make the point that for those of us with a trans nature,our first permission to express it is just the start of a journey of continuing expression, of a journey to find a way to have a public expression of our feminine heart, then I agree with you.

    If you want to make the point, as it looks like you do, that if you give any random man permission to express femininity that will start them on a journey of continuing expression, that it will turn them into a "she," then I strongly disagree.

    Dressing a man up once may reveal something about their heart, their desire, their bliss, but that will only be continuing trans expression for those of us who have a feminine heart.

    And for us, that journey of exploration of expression is going to start sometime, even if no one ever "dresses us up once."

    ReplyDelete
  5. Stana, I went to the 82 Club on a lark with a girl that I was dating in the early 70s. He parents had gone there with other couples and said it was a great show so my date and her friends lined up the date. The three guys were a little uncomfortable but the girls reassured us it would be ok. It was one of the first times that I saw a night club act in person. TV was one thing but this club on the lower east side of Manhattan was another world.
    I was struck with the opening number that the gorgeous showgirls were guys, probably a few years older than me at the time. I was amazed at how they looked in showgirl costumes,heels, fishnets and made up to the nines. They were great dancers and lip synchers. I was transfixed on them to the chagrin of my date.
    References were made over the next few months and she came up with the idea of going as Sonny and Cher on Halloween. I found myself in her mothers black jumpsuit and heels. My GF bought me a black bra and panty set with pantyhose from the 5&10. Her older sister did my makeup and nails. A cheap Halloween wig ccmpleted the costume. When they took me to a mirror I was dumbfounded at how I looked. We had a blast at the party and afterward. It never became a routine but on a few occasions, I experienced the thrill of dressing again.
    Thanks for your wonderful blog!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Small world :) Pretty much similar to my own early experiences, including discovering, being fascinated by, and collecting the ads for the 82 Club.

    Laurette

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well now. I think all of who dress have some interesting stories about when we first started dressing and how it made use feel.
    One of my first memories is Halloween, but it didn't help me socially with my so called friends. I was sixish and ended up with only two, I was no longer in the gang.
    My mothers clothes were not my turn on, they were to plain. But yes the first time you try on pantyhose, well that's kinda like closing the deal.

    Yeah, I would go along with that snowball effect.

    ReplyDelete