The Eroticization of Cross Gender Expression Part 1: Childhood & Adolescence

When I was small, I got a thrill out of tie up games. My favorite was the "damsel in distress" trope played out in movies and TV (e.g. Daphne from Scooby Doo or Batgirl). I remember watching those women struggle and “mmmpphh”on the TV screen and would want so much to be in their predicament and their gender. I remember becoming embarrassed if my parents or other kids were watching the shows with me. I would try to act calm, hoping no one saw or sensed what I was feeling.

When I was a little older, I began putting on womens clothes and makeup and then gagging myself; fantasizing I was being tied up by a mean babysitter or some older girl from school. I liked the "tough girls" like "Jo" from "Facts of Life" or Joan Jett -- the larger and older girls who could overpower me and do mean things.

When I became sexually active, I still longed to be tied up as a damsel-in-distress but had no way of expressing the desire. I was attracted to girls and if I were to succeed as a woman-loving male, I couldn't behave like a female. Also, I learned early on there was something "wrong" with someone who liked tying other people up or being tied up themselves.

So I was too ashamed to ever ask any of the young women I was with to tie me up, let alone allow me to cross-dress in front of them. So I would try introducing bondage elements into our sexual activity, hoping somehow my partner would get that I wanted those things done to me. So I would try putting my hand over my partners mouth or gagging her with something, hoping she would turn the tables. I also "playfully" wore many girls' panties and stockings. I was throwing out clues right and left, but did not have the words to express any of it directly. In the social milieus of my young adulthood, cross-gender expression was impossible, but the desires found their way to the surface through my "playful" cross dressing and introduction of bondage into sex. I was experiencing being a damsel in distress by proxy; becoming aroused by imagining myself in the role of my partner.

As you might imagine, it was not the most successful strategy; I ended up with a lot of former partners who thought me really strange. I want to be clear though that I was never non-consensual with anyone and the feelings of arousal were not coming from a place of control or power over someone at at all. I became aroused by imagining myself in the role of my partner.