What do you see?

We all react and develope differently, so there is not right or wrong...within reason. 

I look at some CD photos and I am really attracted, but others, not so much. I am happy for anybody you has made the decision to dress, and even.more so to ppst a picture. I try very hard to be nonjudgemental, but am happy to offer comments and advice if asked, or leave just positive comments if not. I hope I have never left a negative comment.

As for myself, I have mixed reactions to my own look. I used to be very.critical, but have lightened up on myself and just accept who I am and how I look, thoigh I do try to improve both.

@emmajones If I had to guess, I'd say that you probably haven't come to grips yet with your own feelings on what you're attracted to and/or how you feel about your own dressing.

I think it's crucial to accept yourself because until that happens, the very notion of a crossdresser (let alone the sight of one) will immediately remind you of your own unresolved issues and create that sense of discomfort.

Similarly, once you figure out what it is you find attractive, then neither will that cause you such consternation. I'd suggest trying to find a gender therapist who may be able to help you work through both of these topics.

This is one of many confusions that we have when coming to terms with who we are. 

Looking at others who may appear as attractive women, are we meant to admire them as a male would or as a woman would? if you take away the male element then it is an admiration as to what they are wearing, presentation and so on and not those male urges which are very shallow, to put politely.

The attraction to ones self when dressed is another. Finding what you see as attractive is again based on your male side. You see that image and think it is attractive hence the feelings as to why you find it attractive which means attraction to a man which would repulse you if that isn't why you dress. Women who dress well is not for any other motive than feeling good about themselves and exude style and so it is for crossdressers.

You have to take away the male and understand how a woman looks at another woman. What do they see and, like seeing a very smart crossdresser it is as an example of how the person viewing would like to be, to emulate them or, to look at what they are wearing, where they purchased it from and to go out and buy it. 

Perhaps this is one of many reasons crossdressers purge because of these conflicts when it is an adjustment to suppress the male side and understand the female more.

It's a difficult question to answer and hope it has been expressed tactfully.

There are a bunch of aspects to this.

When I search for crossdressing images, much of the results are x-rated. Not my thing. Some that I remember show things such as fully hairy legs under stockings. Not my thing, maybe there are reasons. I have my own issues with body hair (and I am still working on that myself), so I don't think that I am being too critical, of myself or others.

On the other hand I haven't spent much time on CDH looking at the fabulous images that members post here. With everything else going on at my end, I just don't have the time to scrutinize them all that often. I am amazed at how feminine especially some younger members can look. And older members have really surprised me, too. Truly astonishing skills developed over a lifetime of crossdressing.

Because of the way I dress, I also don't spend a lot of time in front of mirrors or taking pictures of myself. Since there isn't a lot of facial talent being developed at my end yet, there is not much to see here.

I am just being realistic and trying to be time efficient doing one step at a time dealing with things from the neck down, but my admiration goes out to all of you.

I hope that gives you a different perspective on being self-critical.

We are all at different points on our CD journey and are ultimate distinatiins are not necessarily the same. The key is to accept yourself as you are at any given time. When I finanlly did that I have been at peace with myself in many ways, including the acceptance of how I look.

Once you learn to be more comfortable with your own feminine image and your own feminine self, your thoughts about how others dress and appear will be less judgemental.

I have to admit that there is a before and after in me thanks to CDH. Seeing transvestites has never bothered me, then as I discovered myself I positively called all the transvestites.

But now I am more critical, just as critical as I would be with a woman. I don't judge, but there are styles now that I wouldn't wear.

And sometimes I dress up and pay more attention to my feminine virtues, and other times they don't appear as much. But I care less and less, what matters to me is that I am happier and happier when I dress as a woman. And I can do very little of that.

A big kiss to all.

I am worried about my response, so I am asking for forgiveness up front.  As I said in my profile, for whatever reason, I am compelled to wear women's clothing.  I do it for myself, in the privacy of my own home, never considering venturing out and about (sorry for the rerun but I don’t know who has and who has not seen my profile).  

I dress like a woman that would catch my male eye and, perhaps, any mans eye. I take photos of myself, not out of vanity, but so I can see what I need to do better next session (all of this is leading somewhere, I promise).

One crazy day, I got a wild idea.  Why not post one of my pics to CDH?  So, I did.  Penelope was born (confession, I never had a femme name before that.  Didn’t need one.  It was only me, my lingerie and feminine wardrobe).

What a surprise! CDHers liked Penelopes image.  Quite a lot, it seemed.  I was elated and felt over joyed. I felt happy because I was being accepted by a group of people like me. People that are exploring a part of their nature that happens to be taboo elsewherr.  People liking Penelopes image to celebrate that here was an image of a CDer that had been fairly (still a work in progress) successful at creating an somewhat attractive facade (please do not take this as lack of humility or boasting).  This was an audience of my people.  Importantly, I did not then believe, nor do I now believe, that this audience was a group of lustful CD admirers. I feel like I am in a family of lots of sisters where I can be my femme self, and its okay.  Some sisters will like me, others not. That’s the nature of a large family. When I look at pictures of other girls on CDH, I look through the eyes of a sister, offering praise when I wish, remaining silent other times. 

I did not know what to expect after Penelope came into being.  But I am growing and feeling more and more like a sister to all of you, nothing else.  Maybe that's Penelopes path, I don’t know.  I am enjoying the sisterhood, though.  I hope you all will allow me to ride along a while more.  Who knows what lies ahead and what does it matter as long as I can wear some of my favorite outfits and be accepted and surrounded by my sisters.

I think the secret to looking at pictures be it CD or not, intimate, or not is to not compare yourself to such images, but to be inspired to improve your look and attitude about yourself. Few of us will be Playboy models, but they can inspite us to try a little harder to step up our look. 

The same applies to just people watching out in public. Seeing an attractive, well dressed GG while nice to think we could emulate the look, the reality is unless you are that person the best we can do is be inspired by the look to change our look a bit along her lines.

I'm not sure I've ever judged. Perhaps in the 70s, I was guilty of talking about trannies, poofters, shirt-lifters, weirdos, while at the same time lusting after lesbians and imagining threesomes with two women, but really, I'd like to think I've been fairly tolerant.

These days, I am extremely tolerant of the above groups. My own son is gay and lives with another man and I am a crossdresser who goes out and about in public.

I do look at other crossdressers and sometimes I think how good they look and other times I think, 'You really haven't tried,' but I no longer judge; what they do and how they do it is up to them, it's just not always to my taste.

I am happy with the way I look. When I first started my journey, my wife—perhaps rather cruelly, but truthfully—told me that whatever I did, I'd always look like a man in a dress. This hurt for a while, but both of us have changed. I have become more adept at being Becca and she has become less and less bothered by how other people might see me. Oh, and she no longer thinks I look like a man in a dress and has even said I look better than quite a few women; isn't she sweet.

After reading the OP, I watched the video of Savannah Hauk doing her TedX talk, and after initially seeing her as a man in a dress, it was only a very short time before I completely forgot that fact. I stopped noticing her voice was low, and indeed, it started to sound quite feminine as the talk went on, even though it had not changed. Her statements were true, inspiring, but in the end, perhaps largely fruitless. There will always be people out there who don't understand, refuse to even try. There will be 'real men' to whom everyone not god-fearing and butch, will be labelled with the titles I used to use:  trannies, poofters, shirt-lifters, weirdos.

In many places these days, there is more tolerance, to some extent because people are too wrapped up in their own lives to give two hoots about anyone else; whatever they wear or however they behave. In some places—and I can't imagine even visiting South Carolina, never mind living there, after Savanah's less-than-enthusiastic opinion of the place—crossdressers have little chance of acceptance; my own village is one of them. Strangely, they are quite accepting of gays and lesbians here for the most part. Indeed, when we first moved here 22 years ago, it almost seemed compulsory to be a lesbian, so many of them were there. A gay man ran the pub for a while without recrimination. Oh, I don't know, reading this back, perhaps there's hope here after all.

TBH, I forgot what my point was; perhaps I already made it. Heigh ho, onward and upward.

Becca