Partner wearing women's clothes

[Uncomfortablybum]

I have been seeing someone for almost 6 months. He has recently opened up about being excited by the idea of wearing women's clothes during sex. I do not know what to say. Anyone any experience of this? He tells me that this is the first time he has ever told anyone this. I want to tread carefully with this as I don't want to cause any shame for him, so I'm trying to gather my own thoughts and feelings so that I can have a conversation around it. I feel uncomfortable at the moment.

I'd run. Very quickly in the opposite direction from this man. Urgh.

But OP didn’t say she finds it revolting and weird, she just said she was uncomfortable with the idea.
I advised her to be open minded in the same way as lots of women on here advised her to run. OP asked for our opinions/ advice so am I ok to give her mine without you finding it inappropriate?

OP, you also need to find out if he’d prefer to wear women’s clothes every time during sex, etc. I personally wouldn’t have enjoyed that, but my guy only did that occasionally, just in the same way we’d occasionally play other sexual games, role plays, watching porn together, etc. That became less and less as the years went by (just as in ‘normal’ sexual relationships sex can become more boring/ vanilla in time)!
I should add that I am normally more submissive and a man in women’s clothes is not a turn on for me at all, but it didn’t bother me with my guy (and I even enjoyed knowing I was giving him pleasure) because he was an ‘alpha’ man outside of the bedroom and had so many qualities. Everything has to be put in balance but in the end your gut will tell you if it’s something you can learn to accept or not.

I work quite a bit with people who have gender issues, whether it's a desire to cross dress from time to time or even people who feel they are born in the wrong body and want gender reassignment.
It's impossible to say from this one request on his end where on that spectrum he finds himself. And you can ask, but if it's caused him a lot of shame in the past, you may not get an honest answer, or at least not right away.

What matters most however, is how you feel about it. If it's no more than a sexual fetish, and he can live with being in a relationship where he can't act on that fetish and still be satisfied with the rest of your sex life, then there's really no problem. You should be able to say: hey, I don't really mind that this thing turns you on, but it doesn't push my buttons so could you leave it out of our bedroom?
That way you're not shaming him (and if he does feel ashamed or rejected, it's not on you. That's his thing to deal with), but you're also setting a clear boundary and telling him that he shouldn't expect you to come around any time in the future.
At that point, it's up to him to decide whether he wants to be in a relationship where part of his sexuality has to be repressed. Plenty of people do, and are perfectly happy because they value the relationship more than the one small thing they have to give up.

But I'd sya transparency and open communication are key. You really need to figure out how big this things is and how unhappy it would make him if he couldn't bring it into your relationship.

Please ignore my previous message in which I quoted you. I just realised you meant something else. You are right. Apologies 🌷 🌺 🌹

She didn't just say she was uncomfortable with the idea, although uncomfortable in the context of sex is a very strong and important word anyway so 'just' being uncomfortable is reason enough not to do it.

Look at the other things she said.
"I don't want to cause any shame for him"
She doesn't know if she has some "weird buried prejudice".

That language is very much in line with the conditioning that we've been subjected to in recent years. You must not 'kink shame' because that's the worst thing you can do. Even saying you don't like something could 'kink shame'. We must be open minded or else they could feel shamed.

And now no isn't good enough, a visceral reaction isn't good enough, feeling uncomfortable isn't good enough, we must uncover our hidden biases and work on them 🙄

I am struggling to believe I'm the first person he's said this to, to be honest.

Of course you aren't. Telling is all part of the shame and he gets off on the shame. Plus, the other women he has told have run.

Join them.

This is terrible advice. The boundaries that we set are always pushed.

All this X 100

I'd find the idea of this - even him.doing it on his own - to be a total turn off.

If find him proposing to bring it into our sex life even more of a turn off, and it would be a hard no.

The fact that he does it at all would put me off him.

I'm not attracted, sexually or emotionally or "mentally" to men who want to dress up "as women" (nor am I attracted to submissive men....which is often part of their fetish(.

Their fetish often seems to be based on dressing "as a woman"/acting "like a woman" (both of which are gender stereotypes anyway) with that being submissive, decorative, a sex object, bimbo-y etc.

Yep.

It's also got us to having to debate why men with furry fetish in dog costumes with tail dildos interacting with kids at gay pride is inappropriate. Or drag queens reading stories and doing sexy dances in front of toddler and kids groups is inappropriate.

@Hbosh
What matters most however, is how you feel about it. If it's no more than a sexual fetish, and he can live with being in a relationship where he can't act on that fetish and still be satisfied with the rest of your sex life, then there's really no problem. You should be able to say: hey, I don't really mind that this thing turns you on, but it doesn't push my buttons so could you leave it out of our bedroom?
That way you're not shaming him (and if he does feel ashamed or rejected, it's not on you. That's his thing to deal with)

There's no 'should' about it. Maybe she does mind if that turns him on and it's ok for her to not want to continue the relationship. If he feels shamed by that then that's not on her either.

You really need to figure out how big this things is and how unhappy it would make him if he couldn't bring it into your relationship.

And how unhappy it might make her if they bring it into the relationship or if she knows he's doing it when he's by himself.

It's not shaming to finish a fledgling relationship when you discover aspects about each other that you don't like.

It would be a deal breaker for me and most women so don't feel that your response isn't 'normal' 'kind' whatever.

Let him go do whatever, you don't have go along for the ride.

Every thread like this, so many posters acting like it's womens' job to accommodate and compromise towards mens fetishes.

Just confirming the poster's female socialisation to have to be "kind" and not to be allowed to have boundaries and be "ruthless".
Do you know who has no problem going after what they what, not tolerating for a second what they don't want, being "ruthless" and "selfish"?? Yeah, men.

I have yet to see any threads like this on a male dominated forum I used to frequent, but if a guy posted dating his gf wanted to dress as a man in boxers and a fake goatee during sex ..... They'd probably laugh their ass off and tell them to GTFO.

You should be able to say: hey, I don't really mind that this thing turns you on, but it doesn't push my buttons so could you leave it out of our bedroom?
That way you're not shaming him (and if he does feel ashamed or rejected, it's not on you. That's his thing to deal with)

But knowing he has that fetish and knowing he probably does it on his own, and knowing he'd like to be doing it in your sex life (and he's already slow to climax ACC to op) matters.

It's not just about whether he accepts it not being part of their sex life.

Most women don't want to shag men who dress up like the opposite sex/have some kind of fetish about dressing up like the opposite sex. If I wanted to fuck a woman, I'd fuck one. I don't want to fuck a man dressed up (badly) as a woman. I'm attracted to men because they are the opposite sex.

(Though I would find it very refreshing to see one dressed up in PJ's/lounge wear/jeans clutching a hot water bottle for period pain while trying to juggle work and house admin and kid stuff and meal prep etc. Funny how they never want to dress up at that manifestation of a woman(.

A poster on a different post made this comment which I think is relevant. I paraphrase.

6 months?! He's not your partner, he's your boyfriend. I have chutney iny fridge longer than that.

He wants to do X . It makes you feel uncomfortable. You think it might be a slippery slope. He's not great in the bedroom anyway and instead of wanting to add to your pleasure he makes a suggestion that turns you off. Why are you wondering if you should facilitate this?

I'd say he very likely hasn't told you all of it and it is the tip of the iceberg. I'd be afraid he's an autogynephile. Sorry if that's judgemental, but women really do need to be judgemental when it comes to choosing partners.

As a related aside; why on earth do men think that women would be turned on by/attracted to etc a man dressed up in clichéd female "hoochie" gear (that's an American phrase, I think)??

Do you really think the sight of them dresses up in lingerie will make a woman think "he's so hot, this is such a turn on".

Is it because, in addition to fetishising & objectifying women & "femininity"; they also think all women are conveniently lesbian/bi, and will be into them dressing up as a female, (and probably pretending to be one)?

(Even if a woman was bi or lesbian, wouldn't that cause them to be attracted to actual women ... Not men styled as women).

It's all just such an ignorant, objectifying, self serving, offensive projection of their views of women.

No it's because they want a woman as a prop.

But presumably the prop is not blank; presumably they are supposed to be admiring/impressed/turned on/excited ..... Or, if the guy also has a humiliation/submission fetish, they are supposed to be dominant/derogatory etc.

This all means the woman is supposed to have a reaction to them dressed up .... And presumably not the real reaction most would have eg "you look like ridiculous, take that stuff off for goodness sake, that's a total turn off, it's hard to respect you and fancy you now, I can't look at you the same way, I really do not want this in my sex life" etc.

So they must project and fantasise about how women feel in such a scenario (?)

I know it's all about them (as a poster pointed out, it seems reasonable to say it goes hand in hand with narcissism) but you would imagine they've also got to be projecting something onto the wife/gf.

FFS, it’s not about being open minded, it’s about the fact women have their own sexuality and many of us would find that a turn off. Is that allowed, or are we just meant to revolve ourselves around what men want?
If a woman wanted to wear a fake beard and Y Fronts and then fuck her boyfriend up the arse, but he wasn’t keen, would you tell him to be more open minded? I highly doubt it.

Aside from that try actually being with someone who has a real fetish, you’ll find it takes over their whole sex life. My ex could only orgasm if latex was involved, I basically became a wanking tool for him, it was soul destroying. There’s a good chance this guy could be in just as deep.

As I've gotten older, I've realised it's best for me to think a bit deeper about my reactions, as I've got a lot of buried and not so buried prejudice from years of conditioning. I like to pause and question where my reactions are coming from, and if it's from a belief I still hold, I'm happy to respond. I haven't said or done anything with this man that I so far, haven't been comfortable with. If this was a guaranteed once off, I may of been tempted to try it. But I don't think it is. I get your post and what you are saying, though.

Because its in my nature to question how I want my life to be. In the past, I have made knee jerk reactions and have regretted it. I have never regretted anything when I've taken the time and space to work something out. It takes me time to work out how I feel. I also set the timescales on my relationships and the labels I gave them. He was my partner. I had boyfriends in my late teens/ early 20s.

* But presumably the prop is not blank; presumably they are supposed to be admiring/impress*

No, not from Trans Widows testimonies. Many AGP men are completely focussed on themselves in these sexual encounters.

This story from our website is a good example of this:

www.transwidowsvoices.org/post/alisons-story-part-2

As previous posters have suggested, where a man has one sexual fetish, the likelihood is that he has others.

If you are even considering staying with this man, then at least find a way to check the porn that he's been watching. It will probably tell you lot about him, and how he really thinks about women. Sadly it's unlikely to be good news.