23/8/2006 - Reflections
Why would someone have a deep and constant desire to dress in the manner of the opposite sex? I'm talking here about transvestism or cross dressing, not transexuality and not homosexuality. And why is it really mostly about males wanting to dress as females? I think that a large part of it - most of it really - is the fact that female clothing offers more and more different dimensions than male clothing. Think of a suit and tie, and its meaning, its semiotics and its persistence: stiffness, power, uniformity, isolation, distance, a suit of armour. Think of a dress and its similar meanings: fragile and soft, open to invasion, variable, inclusive, proximate. And the things that are under the outer skins. For the male, simply that - underwear - and underwear where variations in nature or style are driven primarily by questions of practicality and utility. Singlet and jocks and socks. For the female, a vast array of complexity - bra, panties, stockings, teddies, corsets, suspender belts - and within each category endless variation. That variation however generally occupies a singular theme which is not about practicality or utility on the whole but instead about sexuality and eroticism. My simple question is this: NOT why would any male want to wear female clothes BUT instead, why is this regarded with such disgust, as a perversion, a deviance, or a bit of side-bling to homosexuality? The vice versa - females wearing male attire - does not give rise to the same approbation, revulsion, tittilation or sexual dimensions associated with the idea of males wearing female attire. Why are societal responses to gender cross-overs in dress so divergent? The answers are equally simple, and patriachal. In proposing and promulgating a stupid construct of male attire we also promote and promulgate a stupid construction of male gender supremacy. An individual's activities in cross dressing, no matter how private, represents a subversion of male authority. And we accept this, implicitly in most cases, explicitly in this case. Great as far as the theory goes. What I can't explain as yet is why, at the age of about nine I had a 'fantasy' (not the right term for the brains of nine year olds) about having to escape from somewhere and the only way out was to be dressed as a female ballerina, and as one of many other female ballerinas. I was always the only male, secret and disguised. Hiding? Escaping? From what and to where? Hey, why not, a bigger picture....
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22/8/2006 - Entree 2
 Another introductory photo, more bling jewellery and attempts at sultry looks, all smoothed out via the wonders of photoshop. When I look at a photo such as this I think - is this really me? Well of course its not, that's not my point, and I wouldn't want it to be: it's a diversion, an exploration, a way of seeing myself as a stranger. My real life is happy, productive, emotive, stressed, depressed, jubilant, angry, pedestrian, unusual and otherwise involved with the real world on all its fronts. Ayesha's life (should she have one, which she doesn't) is none of these. It's a small bit of time out of mind, like some people achieve through playing tennis.
That is as good a starting point as I can think of.
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22/8/2006 - Entree
An initial photo of myself as Ayesha. Note the fascination with bling jewellry and blue eyeshadow, I suppose I'm similar to many if not most other transvestites in having both have limited opportunity and a fluctuating interest in crossdressing, which seldom align. As I result when I have the opportunity I for one tend towards the more stereoptypically trashy end of the spectrum.
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About Me
A slightly public version of a very private thing.
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