I really believe that changing your mind, or shifting your perspective, is one of the most mature things one can do. It shows growth. Sometimes your thinking can soften on something, or sometimes you become more resolved. As we experience new things and new people it’s normal for us to reconsider our stance and feelings.
It bothers me when someone criticizes someone else for changing their mind. Oftentimes we are presented with new information which can cause our opinion to evolve.
Of course, I need to acknowledge that sometimes people just arbitrarily change their mind about something seemingly randomly and without reason. It does bother me when people are judgmental and hypocritical and seem to have exceptions to their own personal morals.
…I just deleted two paragraphs that went off on a teeny-tiny tangent that had nothing to do with what I want to write about so we are just going to move on, lol.
Years ago, when I started to move on from just lingerie and wearing panties under my boy clothes, I felt very vulnerable. My wife and I would be enjoying a Saturday night and I would be dressed to kill in full makeup, skyscraper stilettos, a bodycon dress…
I felt amazing, but at the same time I felt… exposed. But not necessarily in a bad way. What I mean is that I was baring my soul. I was expressing an aspect of myself that I had either denied or never really knew was there. I wasn’t sure how pretty I looked, and really, that was the goal. I wanted to look beautiful… not just wear beautiful clothes. When one changes their appearance, especially in such a drastic way, you aren’t ever really sure how well you are pulling it off, so to speak.
What I mean is that I was baring my soul,
It’s also intimidating and overwhelming to go from one gender presentation to another. Let’s face it, presenting as feminine is rooted in societal expectations of what a girl is “supposed” to look like. I didn’t feel I was meeting any of those expectations. I was too tall, my shoulders too broad, my jawline too pronounced… yes I was wearing incredibly feminine clothes but they were being worn by someone with very prominent masculine features. It reminded me of when I would secretly try to put Barbie’s clothes on my sister’s Ken doll.
The world is wonderful but is populated by cruel people. Not as many as social media may suggest, mind you, but the cruel tend to be loud and tend to enjoy their evilness. Some people experience joy from hurting others. I was reminded of this when I started to dress. Of course, I wasn’t leaving the house at this point so unless someone just barged into my living room I knew the risk of anyone pointing at me and ridiculing me was non-existent.
But I knew that if I ever found the courage to go out into the real world I would be at risk of cruel criticism. Again, I felt vulnerable but in a different way. The vulnerability I felt with my wife was similar to nakedness. Like, this is me. This is really, really me. With nothing to protect you, be it clothes or a gender presentation, it’s not surprising to open yourself up to someone else.
Those early evenings with my wife, feeling vulnerable, were some of the most significant moments of my life. I looked into my heart and shared emotions on a level I never did before. And not all of these emotions were about gender identity. They ranged from insecurity to fears to ambitions.
I grew to love and embrace the vulnerability that came with dressing.
Over time these Saturday nights shifted from vulnerable conversations to just… conversations. Similar to therapy, I had dealt with and confronted a lot of internal thinking and emotions and I felt like a new person. I felt confident, I felt lighter. It wasn’t too different from when I met with my therapist.
Saturday nights continued and my comfort presenting feminine grew. I stopped worrying about arbitrary gender norms and stopped worrying about passing. The feelings of vulnerability were mostly shaken off. I started to go out into the real world and confronted what was left of vulnerability.
It was replaced with a feeling of power, to be honest. I had confronted and I overcame any fear I had when it came to leaving the house. Stilettos, a pencil skirt, a cute blouse… they represented confidence. Confidence in my appearance, and confidence that I could face any criticism that could come my way.
A bodycon dress and sling-back heels became my armor. As if to say that if I’m strong enough and brave enough to wear this outfit in public, why do you think that your stupid, mean little opinions will even wound me?
It was funny to me how a dress used to represent vulnerability but now represented strength and fearlessness.
As I continued to work on my presentation what I wore under a dress became just as crucial as the dress itself. Yes, a beautiful top and skirt can help one feel feminine, but I was discovering the power that a corset, thigh pads, and breast forms brought. These became parts of my armor as well, but you just couldn’t see them. They helped shape me. Literally. I had a curvier figure and most of my clothes fit me better. Thigh pads would flatter a bodycon dress. My breast forms moved with me and created a more natural motion. A corset defined my shape and helped with my posture.
In a way, these items were similar to a magician’s secret. I had a curvier figure but I didn’t intend for anyone to see how this magic worked, so to speak. I don’t have an interesting figure on my own. I am very much rectangular shaped but with the help of a cinched corset, my Jolie thigh pads, my Hera breast forms, and a cute peplum dress, I look curvy. I love how these items help me achieve a more traditionally feminine figure and shape.
I get a lot of requests to do a nude photo shoot and I am not going to do that, but whenever I receive these requests I think to myself that they really don’t want that. I mean, I know a lot of guys like seeing naked girls but I look much cuter, much more feminine fully clothed.
In many ways, my clothes, my forms, my shapewear, became my armor. They protect me and they help me feel strong, confident, feminine, and beautiful. I do not want to remove these items. A nude photo shoot would show a rather uninteresting box shaped person with no hips or curves. I wouldn’t feel sexy or beautiful or powerful. Rather, I would feel exposed.
And not exposed in the traditional sense, but rather exposed as not having the curvy, feminine shape that I appear to have. To revisit the magician’s analogy from before, it’s like finding out that the magic was just slight of hand and smoke and mirrors all along. I might look cute and femme in a photo but that’s not how I *really* look. Take away the thigh pads and the corsets and the bodycon dress and there’s just… me.
I had a similar perspective when people would suggest a lingerie photo shoot. I have broad shoulders and no hips and a tummy and all of that can be hidden or at the very least minimized when I am dressed. Also, posting pictures like that seemed incredibly scary. I don’t get a lot of nasty comments when I tweet pictures but this would invite a whole new level of negative criticisms.
Posting pictures like that seemed incredibly scary.
But things change, do they not? Oftentimes our perspective and feelings change as a result of a major life event, other times they gradually change in a similar way to a slowly thawing ice cube.
At this point, “because of COVID” has become almost a cliche. So many things have changed in our lives because of the pandemic. For myself I was feeling confined to my home, just like many of us felt. I longed for simple things and I realized how important the small moments meant to me. Getting dressed up and spending the day out was something I took for granted. It was a reminder that our lives are finite.
And it’s not just our lives that are finite. It’s the physical ability to live our lives. What I mean is that I could get into a car accident and become paralyzed. If I survived it I would continue to live but so many parts of my life, whether strutting through a mall or walking the dogs or just going downstairs to the kitchen for one more cup of coffee would stop.
I don’t fear death (not yet anyway) but I am terrified at losing the quality of life that I have, the quality of life that I take for granted. As the shutdown continued I became more restless and less concerned with the things that held me back… whether they were shelter in place ordinances or my own fears, doubts, and insecurities.
I was also very bored and restless during this time. I’m sure we can all relate.
When we talk about COVID, we tend to divide it as “the before time” and “when things returned to normal”. This isn’t the time or place to discuss this but I don’t think we ever went back to normal. The pandemic fundamentally changed us… as individual people and as a world. As vaccines were distributed and as learned more about protecting ourselves, things, for lack of a better phrase, started to return to normal.
I was anxious to return to a life that was paused. I missed my femme life, my friends, my makeup artist. I was up for anything.
I wasn’t the only one who was raring to go, either. I am a pretty busy girl and I am fortunate to contribute articles and reviews but as you can imagine all of that came to a stop during lockdown. But in the early days of 2021 we began to take the very small, the very tentative and careful steps to return to the post-pandemic world as best as we were able.
I’ve reviewed a few products for my friends at The Breast Form Store over the years and I was asked if I wanted to review some new items, including lingerie. I fired off a reply email so fast. After months of boredom and restless a photo shoot sounded like a vacation.
As I mentioned, I was up for anything and I was also tired of things holding me back. I decided if I was going to review lingerie then dammit I would do a lingerie photo shoot.
I discussed this with my wife (as I do with all the new adventures I embark on), arranged a date with my photographer, booked a hotel room for the shoot, and wondered what on earth I just committed to. But it was like an airplane about to take off… it was too late to back out now.