Grayson Perry

I really don't want to widen the bandwidth of what it means to be a man if it involves men purposely dressing as little girls to get aroused. Largely by the shocked reaction of others unwittingly involved in the fetish.

That's certainly not what I mean when I say men should be able to wear what they like.

It's not the clothes, it's what they represent. The same way as it's not the spaces, it's the women in them.

In the days when I did indeed get out more, including to trans clubs with my ex, I saw several other men there dressed as little girls like GP. I doubt broadening the bandwidth of being male was their motivation.

My interest in men with a fetish is nil.

GP passes the low bar of understanding that he is not a woman.

I can't see why feminism should need to consider him further than that. Let's centre our energy on the women who deal with unhappy consequences of living with a man with a fetish.

I like him. I appreciate him being unapologetically a man-in-a-dress.

OMG, I can't believe ListeningQuietly told Tinsel she 'needs to get out more.'.

Greyson Perry did a documentary back in 2005 (ish) entitled Why Men Wear Frocks

You can't watch it in the UK, but it's available to watch in Europe.

In it, he says why can't men wear dresses? Why can't they (eg transvestites) broaden the bandwidth of what it means to be a man?

I don't know why we can't watch this programme in the UK. I suspect its been censored for wrongthink. He questions a transwoman and I couldn't repeat what he said, because now it would get me a strike.

londonist.com/2005/02/tv_sets_and_the_10

This is an interesting read:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/grayson-perry-my-greatest-sort-of-sex-dream-was-to-be-a-housewif/

He says:
*“I’m not feminine at all. I never really have been.

“I have no special insight into being a woman and I would never claim that. I am just a bloke in a dress.”*

I can see why he might have pissed some people off...!

Have a listen to his appearance on Richard Herring’s podcast. He’s pretty clear that he is GC and that his cross dressing is something that he knows women could have issues with - he’s very sensitive to it and makes no claims for wanting to be treated as a woman.

don't understand why he gets a free pass on this and is seen as a national treasure

Although I agree the AGP in public isn’t particularly pleasant, I think he gets away with it because he’s so obviously avant-garde and arty, and therefore comes into the class of individuals that British people embrace as embodying our ‘great British eccentricity’.

Still think it's creepy, more so if in his own words he thinks it is 'inappropriate'.

I think any old man who gets a thrill out of dressing like a young girl is a creep, I don't understand why he gets a free pass on this and is seen as a national treasure.

Because it has nothing to do with him believing young girls are sexual beings. The thrill comes, he has said, of trying to achieve a look that is completely inappropriate in an adult - no one in their right mind would think for a moment that he was a young girl and very, very few would fancy him as Claire - and it's that sense of humiliation, that he's doing something ridiculous and that makes him look foolish, that he seems to get off on. I suppose it's a creative form of masochism.

The thing is that he was friends with Philippa before they were together as a couple and she knew what she was getting into with his fetish. That's very different from someone being married for several years to a guy who's always presented as male but now insists on being called a female name, says he's the children's mother and wants to wear his wife's clothes.

This is what GP said in a Guardian article in 2018:

I’m an unapologetic fetishist, which is a dirty word in other branches of the trans community. Once during filming I hung out with a bunch of trans people and I overheard one say: “He’s just a cross-dresser.” I turned round with my gun-turret head on and said: “Just a cross-dresser?” I got their number.

I like GP - I loved his art series during lockdown, he said something interesting in that - that he hadn't felt the need to dress as Claire while in lockdown - he is aware that it's performative.

Nothing wrong with performative challenges to society's gender norms IMO, males performing trad female roles, clothing and behaviour and females performing trad males roles, clothing and behaviour. bring it on, the more the merrier. He is quite clear he's male. that's the key issue for me.

Of course I don't know if this is the case with GP.

Grayson Perry being perfectly happy and comfortable with himself, his wife being perfectly happy with it, he's very articulate talking about it, he's funny, warm.... He seems an excellent role model.....

I quite fancy him because he's obviously really secure in his masculinity. I used to fancy Eddie izzard for the same thing....

However....

When you put on women's clothes, is it that you think you are woman, you think you look like a woman? Or, what you really like is to be TREATED like a woman, seen as a woman, take a woman's place in society.... And a lot of that is to do with being seen as a sex object only, or at the very least just someone who looks pretty and not much else....

That's the thing I find most offensive about this....

I've also got quite a lot of experience of people who seek to minimise the effect of these fetishes on women.

That's interesting *lemony". I know who she was but didn't know if she'd spoken about it.

I think any old man who gets a thrill out of dressing like a young girl is a creep, I don't understand why he gets a free pass on this and is seen as a national treasure.

I got the impression that he has always been GC, seems clear reading between the lines in a lot of his interviews.
Dont blame him one bit for not going on the record though, I wouldn't on anything that could do me career harm. I only recently "came out" to my teen dd which was met with predictable hysterics.
His wife seems nice and down to earth.
Having worked in the adult dating industry for years, I never met a crossdresser that wasnt bi.

Is there such a thing as a "part time fetish"?