The Guide to Getting It On (99 page)

There are hundreds of thousands of transvestites or male crossdressers in the United States alone. Many are quite masculine when they aren’t wearing a bra and panties. Many appear quite masculine when they are wearing a bra and panties. They are often married. A lot of crossdressers value their sports-page loving side as much as their inner girlfriend, but struggle with finding ways to enjoy both at the same time.

Contrary to what you might imagine, male crossdressers aren’t necessarily drawn to professions that welcome a guy’s feminine side. The average crossdresser is as likely to be a baseball player, fireman, policeman, auto mechanic or business executive as a hairdresser or florist.

A lot of crossdressers have a perpetual crush on the girl inside, or their female persona. She often calls to them, imploring them to give her life by dressing as a woman. The bra becomes her breasts, the panties her female genitals that he so loves. So there he stands, in front of the mirror, admiring his “breasts and vulva.” This will allow some crossdressers to have the erection they need in order masturbate, others don’t want to be reminded of the male genitals behind their frilly lingerie.

Therapy will not change a crossdresser’s need to crossdress. However, if a man is compulsive about crossdressing, therapy can help him with that aspect. Many crossdressers hope that marriage will cure them of their desire to dress like a woman. But the envy and allure of their wife’s underwear drawer will soon rear its head and so much for good intentions. This might be okay with the guy’s wife or girlfriend, but problems could arise if he keeps stealing her favorite bra and panties to wear.

Men who are reading this book while wearing their favorite DKNY dress might be concerned about being found out. This is a fear shared by many crossdressers who are not out of the closet.

If you are a wife or girlfriend who suddenly discovers that your man has a secret cache of frilly garb, try to give yourself a three-month chilling-off period before doing anything drastic. Talk to your partner about what he does and why. He must love you a great deal if he’s worked so hard to hide something that’s so darned big. If you can, check out the site of the Society for the Second Self or Tri-Ess at
www.tri-ess.org
. This national organization is for crossdressers, their wives and their families. Search out anything written by Francis Fairfax, particularly the
Wives’ Bill of Rights.
Some women also find the books by Helen Boyd to be helpful.

Given how this is not the sort of thing you can call your mom or sister about, see if there is a support group in your area for wives of crossdressers. The folks at Tri-Ess can help you find them. Talk to these wives about what they will and won’t put up with. There are plenty of things you don’t need to agree to, like meeting your man for lunch when he’s dressed like Britney Spears. And if for some reason he thinks he can dress up in front of the kids or gets so deep into the crossdressing scene that he stops being a good husband or dad, crossdressers’ wives will offer all the support you need to confront him. In other words, you don’t have to condone what he’s doing but you don’t need to divorce him either.

For a lot of women, it would be easier to accept their husband if he said he were gay. But to see him dressed up like Little Bo Peep and hear him say he’s straight.... Wives tend to fear they will lose the manly part of their crossdressing man. Hopefully, he’ll be the same man he was in bed before you found out about the heels and gown. Part of a wife’s fear may have to do with humiliation that someone else will find out.

After chilling off, a wife or girlfriend might see that there are worse things a man could do than wear women’s clothes, fashion crime that it might be. She might also realize that he has the same good characteristics that he had before she found out about his hidden side.

There’s no shortage of publications on crossdressing. Some people value the books by Peggy Rudd, a therapist and the wife of a crossdresser. Others aren’t so comfortable with her crossdresser-as-visionary point of view. Your public library may have them, but perhaps you’ll want to try Amazon.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
There’s an extensive crossdressing resource section in our “gender bender” link area at
www.Guide2Getting.com
. The book “Alice in Genderland” should be at the top of any crossdresser’s reading list. It’s by Alice Novic, a crossdressing psychiatrist. And need a gift for a man who cross-dresses? Try
www.crossdresserheaven.com
or
www.wayout-publishing.com
.

Phone Sex—When 911 Isn’t Enough to Put Out Your Fire

Ever wonder what goes on in phone sex, when a man pays several dollars a minute to get a good talking to? A young woman who worked as a phone-sex operator after graduating from an expensive private college was kind enough to offer the following description:

“The fantasies ranged from men who wanted me to physically beat myself on the phone with a hairbrush, to those who wanted me to force them to have oral sex with other men and those who just wanted to hear me have an orgasm. What struck me is that men have more gay fantasies than I would have expected. There seems to be a correlation between men who have powerful jobs and their sexual fantasies. One client, who I later found out was a senior partner in a financial firm always wanted me to ‘force’ him to do things, mostly to other men and sometimes to me. Others wanted to escape from their life, shed their responsibility and their maleness—they explored their imagination with me and pretended I was their dominatrix, their she-male, their whore. I gave them permission and encouraged them to be who they wanted to be and that’s what they needed.”

“I always wondered about clients. I was madly curious. I wanted to know who they were, how much money they made, if they were married, if they were straight and if they were the kinds of guys I knew. And often, I’d ‘interview’ them and I’ll admit that I looked up what I could find on Google. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know why they were calling me, how it played into their real sex life and what I was to them. In some instances, I was the woman on the phone who was their mistress, but in the most controlled way and they would call on a regular basis. Some got attached to me and I was fired and then rehired and in my absence, I was missed (as I learned later).”

Vaginal Fisting (Handballing)

Vaginal fisting is finger fucking times five, and then some. This Guide first became aware of the concept when reviewing lesbian tapes produced by and for women. It seems that some women enjoy having a partner’s fist inside their vagina.

But that kind of fisting is being done by women to women. Most women have significantly smaller fists than men. A fist the size of a man’s could take a potentially pleasurable experience and turn it into something akin to childbirth in reverse. On the other hand, a leading sex therapist has informed us that a number of straight couples are getting a fist up.

If vaginal fisting is something you want to try, please plan far enough ahead to read a book or two that covers the subject. Greenery Press publishes
A Hand in the Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting
by Deborah Addington. This subject is also discussed in the
Good Vibrations Guide to Sex
by Anne Semans and Cathy Winks, Cleis Press and in the
On Our Backs Guide to Lesbian Sex,
edited by Diana Cage, Alyson Press.

Please check with a health-care professional before attempting any kind of fisting, and in no instance should you proceed if you experience anything but the slightest amount of pain. Perhaps you can find the name of a physician or nurse practitioner who is familiar with fisting through a gay and lesbian health center, since your local HMO might not be particularly well versed in the practice. You should never attempt fisting if either of you has been drinking or doing drugs, and you certainly shouldn’t try it before reading the advice of women who do it.

Anal Fisting

Some couples, straight as well as gay, are into anal fisting. You shouldn’t even think about trying this unless you really, really, really know what you are doing. Technically, this act is possible without causing physical damage, since surgeons occasionally stick an entire hand up a person’s rectum. On the other hand, receiving an entire fist up the bum requires the kind of relaxation that is beyond the capacity of the average asshole.

Couples into anal fisting often recommend a book on the subject by Bert Herrman,
Trust—The Hand Book
, Alamo Square Press. Tristan Taormino’s
The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women, 2nd edition,
Cleis Press is also an excellent resource. There might also be organized groups of fisters in the nearest large city who give talks and demonstrations. Please check with a health-care professional before attempting any kind of fisting, and in no instance should you proceed if you are not completely sober or experience anything but the slightest amount of pain.

Dear Paul,

Do you have any advice about going to a dominatrix? —Policeman by Day, Schoolboy by Night

Dear Officer,

To help answer your question, I called my friend Lorrett, who runs a house devoted to BDSM and fantasy play. She offers the following advice:

1. BDSM is about creating a fantasy scene, and then acting it out. In creating the scene, you need to talk to the person you are hiring about things like boundaries, safe words, and how you want the scene to play out. You should feel comfortable with the person, and feel that they are comfortable with you in negotiating the scene. If they come off as being abrupt or domineering when setting up the scene, then what follows isn’t going to be play. Instead, you are going to be acting out their agenda, and what follows will be anything but consensual.

2. Trust your instincts. It’s fine to be nervous or anxious, but if you feel frightened or uncomfortable, go elsewhere.

In domination and fantasy games, the dominatrix doesn’t actually get you off. You are free to get yourself off in her presence, but she won’t actually give you an orgasm the way a prostitute will. That’s why it’s not illegal for you to hire a dominatrix.

A Well-Respected Resource:
The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge
by Tristan Taormino, Cleis Press, 2012. Special Thanks to Lorrett at Fantasy Makers in Berkeley and Janet at Greenery Press—two of the nicest people around.

CHAPTER

48

Vulva Care—Keeping Your Kitty Happy

W
e have received questions from male readers about how some of the women they’d gone down on didn’t seem to be paying a lot of attention to general crotch care. When we forwarded an inquiry to our gynecology expert, she went on a rant:

“It fascinates me how many women come to the gynecologist with a smelly puss. For heaven’s sake, give the kitty a little wipe-down before you spread your legs.”

Then we thought about what college healthcare providers have communicated—that they’re seeing young women who won’t use the Nuva-Ring because they say it’s gross to stick their fingers in their own vagina. Ditto for OB tampons.

Let’s see, a woman will let some guy whose first name she hardly knows stick his fingers, face and penis between her legs, but a little self-exploration is gross? Which got us to thinking that if enough women are uptight about their genitals, they might have a tendency to either over do it by cleaning themselves in a scrubbing-douching frenzy, or they might ignore that part of their body altogether and spend the extra time getting a new set of nails. So we figured it was time offer the Guide’s
Guide to a Happy and Healthy Crotch.