Who Am I?

This subject is really split between two posts -- the previous one named "Reflections" which describes what led up to my introspection, and this my moment of introspection.

If you read the very first posting on this Blog, you'll see that my love of satin and silk started at an early age and has been part of me for all my life both as an adult and a child. It has caused confusion, guilt and sorrow over my life. There has been some anger and fear as well. All of those emotions are perfectly normal and appropriate reactions at a particular instant in life. They are useful in dealing with situations as they arise. They are not useful if we lose ourselves in them and/or are controlled by them as we go on from the instant in question. What is important for the rest of our life is not the emotion itself -- it is what we learned from the moment in which we experienced the emotion. Fear was an appropriate emotion for our ancestors facing a sabre tooth tiger. Fear may have driven the instinctive fight or flight reaction that saved the individual at the moment of encounter. If the person learned that sabre tooth tigers were dangerous and learned how to deal with that knowledge, that was what kept them safe, not the fear itself. We must assume that our ancestors learned that lesson because our species survived and the sabre tooth tiger didn't.

So what have I learned about me from all my emotions?

I am a crossdressing panty wearing male. I am very straight and somewhat dominant, and tend to exhibit bits of an Alpha Male characteristic in group situations -- although my real character is more a "Lone Wolf". I fit easily into the guardian, helper and protector of the pack roles. I am a Gemini born of a Gemini so I am multifaceted to say the very least. I am intrinsically and instinctively curious and am a constant learner. I really feel that my last learning moment will come with my last breath. I have an ability to "calibrate" myself to others extremely well and am very empathetic. I can feel and experience the feelings of others, and have learned to use my ability to help others feel respected and "validated" in that their feelings and thoughts are perfectly ok and normal. (There is an old quote that is very appropriate here -- "We teach best what we need most to learn.")

What turns me on and excites me? Obviously the physical answer to that question is easy. My love of silk and satin is tactile and the feel of those fabrics on any part of my body is electric. That spills to a visual connection. Seeing soft silky lingerie connects to my tactile responses and it turns me on as well. The reality of functioning in the world gives both the visual and tactile turn ons some context. My lifestyle and social connections don't let me parade around the streets in drag, and while I clearly love seeing a woman who has good lingerie taste and who wears her lingerie proudly, I must just smile to myself and behave appropriately.

The psychological part of what turns me on is a bit more complex. I don't deny that making love to a female partner who likes being in lingerie and having me in lingerie is exquisite. That however is not my ultimate turn on. The thing that turns me on is a partner's arousal. If she isn't into lingerie on me or her, I will still get very aroused by her arousal. Being a Gemini, I'd rather have a good conversation than have mediocre sex with a partner who wasn't really into it.

I have been extremely lucky to have found women who got aroused by seeing or touching me in lingerie. I have had the pleasant experience of confessing my secret and being asked to "show me" -- more than once with very pleasant results. I have also found women who asked for more information and decided it wasn't for them and had pleasant encounters with them too. The actual enjoyment of a sexual encounter with any of them had little to do with the question of lingerie or not -- it was all to do with respect and feelings of desire and compatibility. The "confessions" weren't random and unsolicited -- they were to women with whom I had already established enough of a relationship for both of us to consider going further.

I have ventured into the areas of bondage and domination sexually and the dominant role "fits" me very comfortably. The real turn on in my forays there wasn't the act itself, it was the excitement I felt and saw in the lady with me. It is very easy and very exciting to be with a woman who is dripping with arousal and smelling sweetly of her arousal. I am only aware of one incident where I was the second person to make love to a woman within a short period of time. The woman in question had sex with her regular partner shortly before we made love, and she was still very much "in the mood". Her arousal plus the smell of her patner's seed was like a strong magnet. I didn't make love to her, I ravaged her strongly and steadily for quite some time. The alpha male certainly arrived that day and both of us enjoyed it very much. (She led me to believe that if she chose to share details with her regular partner he would enjoy it too.)

I could certainly deal with someone who wanted equality, and am very interested in learning my partner's preferences. How ever chauvinistic it may sound, I'm much better at taking charge of lovemaking and/or eliciting ideas from a partner than I am or would be at taking orders. I would have no problem not wearing lingerie and telling my partner exactly what we were going to do once I was sure that was her preference.

I don't have a submissive bone in my body and would not likely get myself into a romantic interlude with a woman who wanted to dominate me.

So in answer to my friend who said the lingerie would turn her off, I'm sure if we ever were to bridge the gap of a few thousand miles between us, and we decided that we wanted to be intimate, I could find her style and we could enjoy a very satisfying encounter. Being with her would be quite exciting all by itself.

Come to think about that -- most of my life choices are the same as the sexual ones. I lead by consensus well, I will follow a group path of consensus (for a while at least), and I will turn subversive if ordered to do anything.

Thank you to the friends who inspired this navel gaze.