The Idea of a Woman

What color are my panties?

What style and color are my panties?

My girlfriend Stephanie is vacating the apartment we once shared on the Lower East Side, so what to do with all my stuff I left behind when I moved to Europe last year?  I don’t remember what’s there exactly — probably lots of fashionable clothes that immediately became unfashionable the week after I bought them.  Plus tons of old underwear, pantyhose, camisoles and such.

But I don’t want to tell Steph to simply toss them in the trash, for they’re money in the bank!  Like Bitcoins, a form of international currency!! And like vintage collectibles, the older and more worn, the more valuable they seem to be!!!

I’ve had some experience with men in the past fantasizing about — and fetishizing — my undies, but only recently have I come to understand what an incredible business opportunity they represent.

When I worked as an escort, guys would sometimes bring me lingerie to wear while we had sex, and then take it back home with them as a trophy of sorts.  And one guy, a regular, would wear panties himself to our encounter, then take them off, ask me to then put them on; afterwards, he would use them to masturbate in.  Feeling the silky softness around his shaft was infinitely more fun, I guess, than feeling it deep down my throat.

I’m not being critical or judgmental.  For I’ve often cum in my own panties myself.  When I use a vibrator, in fact, it just feels somehow sexier to leave my panties on.  Anyway….

Over the last few months a bunch of Facebook friends/followers/fans have offered big bucks for items from my lingerie chest.  I don’t even have to freshly wash them — the more spoiled, apparently the better!  I’m beginning to think I’m sitting (both literally and figuratively) on a gold mine!

Come to think about it, maybe the intimates I wear — conveying the idea of me — is so much better than the reality of me.  Hosiery, thongs and bikinis never bitch and complain, never need selfish satisfaction.  They exist just for your pleasure….yours alone.

So take my poll and send me a offer…. opening bid on my bright orange thong, for example, starts at $50!

Men I Have Known: Chapter 3

Only later would my butt become pinchable...

Only later would my butt become pinchable…

Some of the most meaningful men in my life have been those I haven’t really known at all.  This was especially true in the beginning, when I was first trying out in public my girlish persona. They validated me, and for that, I salute them – all those anonymous men whose lust I awakened!  Which in turn awakened my slut within.

The proverbial construction workers who whistled and yelled “Hey, Baby!”  Real girls sometimes complain (disingenuously?) about this kind of “unwanted” attention; for girls like me, it provides an incredible rush of badly needed self-confidence.

The timid man — tall, dark and handsome – whom I caught staring at my jean-encased butt as I stood in line for a café latte.  Blushing, he quickly snapped his head away.  As a man myself, I had done that cowardly maneuver too!  So I sent him a lifeline by smiling and saying, “Hi!”

“Hi,” another man says as I’m strolling in a city park.  It’s the first time I’m venturing out wearing such a short, snug skirt!  I smile, so he follows me and stands by my side as I stop to read a historical marker.  He starts talking about the history that happened here; I’m so nervous, I don’t pay attention to the content of his words.  He can tell, so he says:  “Don’t worry, I’m married, a faithful husband.”  Turns out he’s a real estate broker and has a $500,000 house in the neighborhood that would be “perfect” for “a young career girl” like me.  A rich bitch, is that what I look like?  I don’t mind.  Or is it all just a ploy: to take me on a tour of the empty house and then fuck me there?  That, I would not have minded either!

Modeling School: More Important in “Transitioning” Than Estrogen Therapy!

Courage = Grace Under Pressure...thanks to Jimmy Choo....

Courage = Grace Under Pressure…thanks to Jimmy Choo….

“Within five seconds of meeting someone, either in business, at school, or socially, you make a critical first impression.  That impression is made up of the following:

55% Appearance.

38% How You Sound.

7% What You Say.

Our modeling school has recognized the importance of a first, and last impression, for 60 years…teaching self-development (finishing) and fashion modeling.

14-week course: Visual Pose/Graceful Movements, Beautyworks.  Wardrobe and Fashion.  Social Graces/Communications.”

The best $1,525 I ever spent!

Even if it can’t buy Love, Money sure helps with Beauty!

The black hat I wear when cleaning out my desk...can't afford to be sentimental!

The black hat I wear when cleaning out my desk…can’t afford to be sentimental!

Rhinoplasty $4,500

Lip Lift $2,000

Corner Mouth Lift w/ extension $1,500

Tracheal (Adam’s Apple) Shave $500

Cheek Implants $3,200

Just uncovered these old bills in all my clutter.  Before I toss in the round file, I thought I’d share.   BTW, I got a big discount for doing all the procedures pretty much at the same time!

Remembrance of Pain Past….

decafashion4

“I really like your scent,” volunteered the woman standing next to me waiting in line at the ATM machine.  “May I ask what it is?”

Before I could answer “L’air du Temps,” my mind churned with possible implications.  Was she sincere?  Or did she suspect something?  Her seemingly innocent question simply bait, to catch me, the pretender, the ersatz female, the alien in society’s midst?  And my still masculine voice would unmask me?

I smiled, whispered “thank you,” opened my handbag, lifted out the perfume bottle, and smiled again.  Show and tell.  Or show and not tell.

It’s hard now to really remember, much less communicate, all the little, terror-inducing episodes like this when I first came out as a woman, trying to “pass” and not get “read.”  When I did pass, it was exhilarating, the equivalent of getting straight A’s in school, winning the lottery, coming in first in a talent contest, getting the promotion plus huge salary increase, all rolled into one.  But the times I failed were worst than F’s; I remember them still as if a recurring nightmare.

Children and drunks: those were the worst.  Those are the ones any new Tgirl has to watch out for.  They never mince words, never afraid to report, often loudly, what they see — making even the most casual stroll down the street turn into terror.  “Look, it’s a man!”

Men I Have Known: Chapter 2

Shaping more than my brows....

Shaping more than my brows….

My very first lover, he was the most judgmental.

It started with my hair.  Too short, he said.

Then my brows.  Untamed, too bushy, he said.

My chest, too flat, of course – he didn’t have to tell me.

Finally…finally…I became what he desired.

And then I killed him.

Sometimes now, in my vanity mirror, I can see his stare still, for his eyes belong to me, you see.  The “he” was once me.  It was he who shaped me…and not just my brows!

Of Déshabillé and Desire: Holiday Reading

Love the Look, don't you?

Love the Look, don’t you?

Sometimes I think my driving passion hasn’t been simply to be a woman, loved, sexy and desirable.  Rather, glamour is what I want!  To be considered glamorous — who could ask for anything more!

That quest is what defines me!  The epiphany comes to me while reading Virginia Postrel’s new book, The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion.

An essential ingredient of glamour is apparent effortlessness or graceful nonchalance, called sprezzatura in Italian. (When Tgirls look like they try too hard, that’s precisely when we’re most often “read!”)

Paradoxically, however, sprezzatura requires great care and craft, attention to detail,  even premeditation, to pull off properly.  Another word for this is grace.

When you communicate grace, you’re not just fuckable, but so much more: An aura of confidence and competence envelopes you.  Others don’t just want to fuck you; they want to be you!

The French expression deshabille — what one literary scholar calls “careful carelessness, artful artlessness, delicately tousled perfection” — is all about eroticism, isn’t it?

While I’m not presumptuous enough to ever call myself glamorous, I can promise you this: I’ll always keep trying…keep working it.

You should, too!

Decisions, Decisions….

Am I doing this right?  Posing for a camera is harder than you think!

Am I doing this right? Posing for the camera is harder than you think!

Do I dare? Go topless, that is. It’s commonplace — going topless — at beaches and spas around Europe. But, still, I worry and wonder.

Most men couldn’t tell — and wouldn’t care if they could — but I know most women could spot right away that I’ve had implants. “Not real,” their eyes would say. And if my boobs aren’t real, what else about me is not real, too?

I’m inviting needless scrutiny.

And then there’s this: I think tan lines from a bikini top are incredibly sexy. Don’t you?

Shopping for Meaning

The Thinker?

The Thinker?

For answers to life’s most enduring mysteries, go shopping.  I have my best, most profound thoughts while trying on clothes in a store’s fitting room — all alone, just me and the mirrors, and clothes,of course,  lots and lots of clothes, different styles, different looks, different sizes!

As many choices, seemingly, as there are stars in the universe….

From the suits the sales associate has left with me, I slip on the cobalt blue, raw-silk skirt.  It fits perfectly.  But the matching jacket is another matter — much too tight around the shoulders!

This happens to me a lot.  For there are no hormone therapies or surgical procedures that can diminish my studly broad shoulders.  When the store offers the jacket and skirt as a pair that cannot be sold separately, the ethical dilemma becomes:

Do I tell the sales associate that I need to mix and match?  Or do I just do it?  (And secretly hope that the next customer will have the opposite problem to mine, namely narrow shoulders and broad hips!)

The disembodied voices coming from the adjacent stalls are of no help.  The chatter belongs to women who have their own consequential choices to make.

It’s dangerous to have too much time to try on clothes.  The temptation is to luxuriate in the possibilities, to experiment with endless looks as if a teenager.  Then the paralysis of perfectionism sets in. Before you know it, the morning’s gone.

But the world has kept on spinning:

There’s news chatter about the U.S. “alienating its European allies,” and I think of ugly clothes that don’t turn heads.

“Actionable intelligence” sounds like a snug micro-miniskirt.

And “the end of history” must mean androgyny and unisex (sooooo boring) fashion.

Before and After

Before Hormones

Before Hormones

After Hormones, But Before Implants

After Hormones, But Before Implants

These pictures were in one of my Facebook Photo Albums — until yesterday! — when Facebook suggested I delete the image showing the breasts I had grown. Within the context of the truly obscene images often floating around Facebook, my picture seems more appropriate to a medical textbook or an art studio.

Apparently just one person filed a complaining report. Who is this unnamed person? This anonymous accuser? Was she truly offended by the image — or just doesn’t like me?

What ax is she grinding? What hidden agenda? I will never know.

I just assume the complainer is a woman or another Tgirl, don’t you agree?

The poor women accused of witchcraft not so many centuries ago — I now have an inkling of how they must have felt. To be banished or burnt at the stake — simply on the word of another woman.

Anyway, that’s quite enough woe-is-me whining….

The before-and-after pictures demonstrate the effects — after almost two years’ treatment — of estrogen transdermal patch and oral finasteride.