They are so confusing! I am trying to understand something that I don't personally feel, so how do I pick one? I am reading and reading and everyone seems to be arguing about the nuances of the labels.
Why are labels even necessary? I think I understand a little bit why. It's so we know what to expect. A Label means it's normal, predictable, acceptable - even if it's not... It makes you fit with someone else. It means you are not alone...
So what labels are there? Any of you reading this can probably list them better than I can - transsexual, transgender, transvestite, cross-dresser, autogynephiliac, transvestitic fetish...the list goes on and on. Where does it end? What are the differences? Are there differences?
One of the hundreds of websites that I ran across (I'm sorry that I don't remember which one to give credit) wrote a snippet that is sticking in my mind... It said that Nature created the Alpha-Male to have sex with all the females. So where did that leave the other males? Somewhere on the spectrum... So the spectrum must be natural...
I have "labeled" William autogynephiliac because he feels male and masculine most of the time. It's only in the sex act that he becomes "female". He is turned on by just the thought of dressing like a woman, by feeling himself as a woman. He masturbates to photos of himself looking like a woman. He uses sex toys to make love to the woman within himself. Yet he says that when he makes love to me, he doesn't think about the woman in him.
But is he just denying feeling the woman in him other times? He answered "yes" to my question "If you could go out in public dressed as a woman and be guaranteed anonymity, would you?" And he answered "I don't know" to "Are you sexually attracted to penis's?"
So is the"autogynephilia" label even accurate?? Does it give us what we need - the ability to predict and define his behaviors, his needs? Or is this label even a little off? Can the label change as he goes through his self-discovery? Where does he fall on the the spectrum?
How am I going to know what to expect?
Showing posts with label transvestite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transvestite. Show all posts
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Good: I saw him last night...in some of his clothes. Only from the neck down and probably fairly sedate for him, I think, considering what I've seen in the pictures, but appropriate for what I was ready to handle. In all honesty, it was a little strange and awkward at the beginning of it- he felt exposed and I felt very self-conscious. In spite of that, the sex was intense - the trust is an incredible turn on for me and you know what the turn on is for him.
The Bad part came afterwards when, instead of focusing on the beauty of the moment, I focused on "me" and "before". It tainted, a little bit, the Good. The crux of my self-consciousness: Last week, after my discovery, I had asked him if he found me sexually exciting. I'll give him credit for answering that honestly, but oh, did the answer hurt!!! He finds women sexually exciting, but not necessarily me. Wow. Wow. Wow. Follow-up questions revealed that it's mostly my excess weight/visual issue for him, but that because he loves me, he can get past it. I guess I can understand that, but last night, it was very prominent in my mind. I hid behind him when we stood in front of the mirror - when he was being "visual" and looking at himself. I didn't want him to see me in the picture with him. Instead of thinking about him, all I wanted to do was hide myself under the covers... It was much better for me when we moved away from the mirror and toward the bed.
The Ugly:
The "Before". It came to the forefront of my mind as I looked through his clothes. As I browsed through them, all I could think about was "Where was I when he bought this? How many times has he lied to me? How much planning went into his lies? How much has he taken away from me?? Our marriage?? Our sex life?? How did I not know?? After the sex, these thoughts circled and circled around in my mind. Again, to his credit, William is being as supportive as he possibly can be . He laid awake as long as I needed him to in order to answer my questions. Despite all the thoughts in my mind, I only needed to ask a few questions - the biggest one that I am still thinking about - which items were bought before our marriage and which ones were purchased afterwards? I feel that I am truly okay with the ones purchased before, but my feelings about those that he bought after we were married are pretty intense. How wrong is it of me to hate those? How unreasonable is it for me to want them GONE? I'll even help him replace them (he has indicated an interest in shopping together.) I'm not rejecting who he is, but I can't stomach what it took away from "us" for so many years...
So.. this morning, I realized that we are left with two different issues. There is almost a line in my mind dividing my life before September 17 and my life after. When I think about the after, I feel a little breathless with excitement and anticipation and nervousness - like a virgin on her wedding night. Thinking about the before though, is...painful. I need to work through the discovery that my spouse was unfaithful to me. He took away so much from my marriage, dividing himself between me and "the other woman." oh, I know in my head that he really didn't have an affair, but it sure feels like he did...
Just so you know, we did discuss most of this this morning - and the sex afterwards was good. I think that we have just defined our first boundary. We need to deal with the "before" part of each and every little piece of his as we introduce it into our marriage so that we don't taint the "after" part. Make sense?
The Bad part came afterwards when, instead of focusing on the beauty of the moment, I focused on "me" and "before". It tainted, a little bit, the Good. The crux of my self-consciousness: Last week, after my discovery, I had asked him if he found me sexually exciting. I'll give him credit for answering that honestly, but oh, did the answer hurt!!! He finds women sexually exciting, but not necessarily me. Wow. Wow. Wow. Follow-up questions revealed that it's mostly my excess weight/visual issue for him, but that because he loves me, he can get past it. I guess I can understand that, but last night, it was very prominent in my mind. I hid behind him when we stood in front of the mirror - when he was being "visual" and looking at himself. I didn't want him to see me in the picture with him. Instead of thinking about him, all I wanted to do was hide myself under the covers... It was much better for me when we moved away from the mirror and toward the bed.
The Ugly:
The "Before". It came to the forefront of my mind as I looked through his clothes. As I browsed through them, all I could think about was "Where was I when he bought this? How many times has he lied to me? How much planning went into his lies? How much has he taken away from me?? Our marriage?? Our sex life?? How did I not know?? After the sex, these thoughts circled and circled around in my mind. Again, to his credit, William is being as supportive as he possibly can be . He laid awake as long as I needed him to in order to answer my questions. Despite all the thoughts in my mind, I only needed to ask a few questions - the biggest one that I am still thinking about - which items were bought before our marriage and which ones were purchased afterwards? I feel that I am truly okay with the ones purchased before, but my feelings about those that he bought after we were married are pretty intense. How wrong is it of me to hate those? How unreasonable is it for me to want them GONE? I'll even help him replace them (he has indicated an interest in shopping together.) I'm not rejecting who he is, but I can't stomach what it took away from "us" for so many years...
So.. this morning, I realized that we are left with two different issues. There is almost a line in my mind dividing my life before September 17 and my life after. When I think about the after, I feel a little breathless with excitement and anticipation and nervousness - like a virgin on her wedding night. Thinking about the before though, is...painful. I need to work through the discovery that my spouse was unfaithful to me. He took away so much from my marriage, dividing himself between me and "the other woman." oh, I know in my head that he really didn't have an affair, but it sure feels like he did...
Just so you know, we did discuss most of this this morning - and the sex afterwards was good. I think that we have just defined our first boundary. We need to deal with the "before" part of each and every little piece of his as we introduce it into our marriage so that we don't taint the "after" part. Make sense?
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Day the World was Turned Upside-Down
Thursday, September 17, 2009 - the day my world changed. It has only been 4 days, but at the same time, it has also been a lifetime ago. I'm starting this story the same way that this journey was started. With the discovery...
It started off an a non-typical day anyway. I was exhausted from being up most of the night with my son who was suffering from a terrible bout of the stomach flu. I kept him home from kindergarten, but my daughter still went to preschool that morning, giving me a little time to prepare for my work meeting over the lunch hour. Even though I consider myself a stay-at-home mom, I still take the occasional temp job just to bring in some extra money. About 10:00am, I happened to glance over at my son who was snuggled into his blanket on the couch. He was feeling better at this point and looked so sweet...I thought "I need to take his picture". Indulging the impulse, I walked over to the shelf and grabbed the camera. Moving close to my child, I turned it on and a photo came up - the camera had been left on the view setting. It took me a double and then a triple take to understand what I was looking at. It was a close-up photo of a man's crotch in lacy red garters and panties. My ears popped and my head got fuzzy. My next thought was "this isn't our camera" followed by "someone is playing a joke on me". I started flipping the photos backwards. About 6 photos in (all close-ups of various body parts in sexy lingerie), I focused in on a full-body image. My eyes saw the dark mustache on the face under the long blonde wig and everything momentarily went blurry. Do you know the scene in the movie where the main character discovers something? The camera quickly focuses in on him, but the scene all around him goes fuzzy and jumps around? Do you know that that really happens? As I realized that I was looking at photos of my husband in our living room - there was our couch - the same one that my innocent son was laying on - I felt shaky, nauseous, panicked. I quickly flipped through the photos again and again, trying to comprehend what I was looking at. My next thought was of my son -- he couldn't know that mommy was upset. I don't know how I found the strength to say as calmly as I could "Mommy will be right back, sweetie" and nearly ran from the room into my daughter's room where I started to hyperventilate. I remember that I kept saying "Breathe, just breathe, oh God, breathe, oh, God, just breathe..." I was shaking. My brain kept trying to grasp what I had seen My thoughts turned to "Who took the pictures? My husband is gay and having a gay affair - in my house!" Who is it??? Is it Steve? or John? or someone I don't know??? Who took those pictures???
____________________________________________________________________
I started the above post four days into our journey. It's amazing how far one can come in such a short time... My husband is not gay; he is an autogynephiliac. The word fits, according to him. It is now day 6 - my reeling world has slowly come to rest, upright, I believe. We are still together. I feel such love for him and I believe him when he says that he loves me. We have committed to work through this and have an appointment in 2 days to see a counselor both to help William come to terms with who he is and to help us as a couple integrate this into our lives. At times, for me, the pain, rage, anger, betrayal that I felt at the moment of discovery wells up inside. When he holds me, though, I am awed by the level of trust that he is placing in me when he tells me exactly what he is feeling and I feel like our love affair is just beginning.
This blog is not about my husband - it is about me and how I am dealing with the changes that are occurring in my life. At this point, I debated whether or not to change the above, but decided to leave it in as it IS the point where our journey started.
It started off an a non-typical day anyway. I was exhausted from being up most of the night with my son who was suffering from a terrible bout of the stomach flu. I kept him home from kindergarten, but my daughter still went to preschool that morning, giving me a little time to prepare for my work meeting over the lunch hour. Even though I consider myself a stay-at-home mom, I still take the occasional temp job just to bring in some extra money. About 10:00am, I happened to glance over at my son who was snuggled into his blanket on the couch. He was feeling better at this point and looked so sweet...I thought "I need to take his picture". Indulging the impulse, I walked over to the shelf and grabbed the camera. Moving close to my child, I turned it on and a photo came up - the camera had been left on the view setting. It took me a double and then a triple take to understand what I was looking at. It was a close-up photo of a man's crotch in lacy red garters and panties. My ears popped and my head got fuzzy. My next thought was "this isn't our camera" followed by "someone is playing a joke on me". I started flipping the photos backwards. About 6 photos in (all close-ups of various body parts in sexy lingerie), I focused in on a full-body image. My eyes saw the dark mustache on the face under the long blonde wig and everything momentarily went blurry. Do you know the scene in the movie where the main character discovers something? The camera quickly focuses in on him, but the scene all around him goes fuzzy and jumps around? Do you know that that really happens? As I realized that I was looking at photos of my husband in our living room - there was our couch - the same one that my innocent son was laying on - I felt shaky, nauseous, panicked. I quickly flipped through the photos again and again, trying to comprehend what I was looking at. My next thought was of my son -- he couldn't know that mommy was upset. I don't know how I found the strength to say as calmly as I could "Mommy will be right back, sweetie" and nearly ran from the room into my daughter's room where I started to hyperventilate. I remember that I kept saying "Breathe, just breathe, oh God, breathe, oh, God, just breathe..." I was shaking. My brain kept trying to grasp what I had seen My thoughts turned to "Who took the pictures? My husband is gay and having a gay affair - in my house!" Who is it??? Is it Steve? or John? or someone I don't know??? Who took those pictures???
____________________________________________________________________
I started the above post four days into our journey. It's amazing how far one can come in such a short time... My husband is not gay; he is an autogynephiliac. The word fits, according to him. It is now day 6 - my reeling world has slowly come to rest, upright, I believe. We are still together. I feel such love for him and I believe him when he says that he loves me. We have committed to work through this and have an appointment in 2 days to see a counselor both to help William come to terms with who he is and to help us as a couple integrate this into our lives. At times, for me, the pain, rage, anger, betrayal that I felt at the moment of discovery wells up inside. When he holds me, though, I am awed by the level of trust that he is placing in me when he tells me exactly what he is feeling and I feel like our love affair is just beginning.
This blog is not about my husband - it is about me and how I am dealing with the changes that are occurring in my life. At this point, I debated whether or not to change the above, but decided to leave it in as it IS the point where our journey started.
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