Petticoated Re-enactors

"Past times are pastimes"   Marshall McLuhan.

I participated in another tea party.  I think I have been involved in 5 so far this year, so in my social circles tea parties are fairly common.  My tea party took place at an event where there were other elaborate scenes including a pageant for little girls over the age of 21, and an equestrian event.
I have been thinking about such events as tea parties, which from one perspective are sorts of re-enactments of historical events.  I think they are not thought of that way, because most tea parties don't end in a pile of corpses, (unless you go to a Borgia tea party).  My first experience with this sort of role playing was when I attended The Sissy Maid Academy,  no longer in existence, which I described in this blog, two and a half years ago.    It was a transforming experience for me.  I learned about the possibilities of bringing some of these common tranny fantasies to life in a safe and insane environment.
So I have done a lot of them now, and while they are clearly for the serving staff, the realization of a sexual fantasy,   For the mostly  female guests, they are a form of re-enactment.  Some of the ladies wear period clothing, and the elegance, and formality of the proceedings hearken back to a time when there were Ladies and Maids, and good stuff like that.  And for this server at least, the excitement of the event is less sexual than it is good old fashion playing including princesses, and saucy maids.  They latter I guess being missing from most young girls dress up repertoire.   And if you look beyond the tea pots and tables into the larger event, there are lots and lots of adults playing dress-up  in leather and lace, and playing together.   The accepted term in fact for scenes between consenting adults at these event is "play".  And if you move beyond the parking lot of the event and peer into the community that surrounds it,  there are all sorts of people hunched over screens engaged in World of Warcraft, and Second Life, and a host of other adventures beyond my limited familiarity.   And of course in the closets of some number of my fellow fanatics,  the uniforms of old wars, and for a few Star Wars!...  Quite a bit of fantasy it seems to this observer in and out of the bedroom.
For me the tea party is a place where I may meet people who may be interested in pursuing more explicitly sexual  play, but at the party they really only want tea served by adorably dressed maids.   And in that time and place that is really all I want: to be adorably dressed and competent maid and to serve buckets of tea, and sweet and savoury delights.   An example;  just last night I was at a party, and began talking with a charming woman.   She remarked  "Didn't you serve at the tea party?"   referring to the event of the week before.   Small world! ( At least I live in a small world)   I was delighted to converse with her, and she took some interest in me.  (I mean what dominant lady in her right mind wouldn't having seen me walk the walk and talk the talk  ("Can I serve fill your cup Maam?")
And these are truly remarkable times we live in, where you can be a confederate captain, a cross dressed member of the red army,  a sissymaid, or a Wookie.
 If you don't believe me, look it up in the Wookiepedia.

Ananda in this Floating World

Here I go and I don't know why, I spin so ceaselessly, 'til I lose my sense of gravity...  
Patti Smith,  Dancing Barefoot


Sometimes I'm dancing on air, but i get scared. 
 Jagger / Richards,  Can Your Hear the Music


Ananda.    This is a word worth exploring.   Sat/cit/ananda.  existence/consciousness/bliss.  This is described as the subjective experience of the supreme soul,  the Atman, God, which can be achieved by seers in a meditative state.   But ananda is also one objects of the the karmendriyas, the fundamental organs of action according to the Samkhya philosophy that is the basis of yoga.   The karmendriyas are 5.   mouth , hands, legs, anus, and sex organs.  And ananda is what you do with the sex organs.   what Alex  in Clockwork Orange  called  "the old in and out".    So the same word is used for orgasm and the subjective experience of the divine.  
It wasn't long ago,  I wrote about a sexual religious experience so these things matters have been on my mind this summer.   
The week coming promises to be a workshop on Ananda in all its manifestations.   This weekend I am going to a BDSM weekend long event with a dear friend.  Then I am going directly to an ashram for a week of meditation and as it happens a week of studying the Samkhya philosophy.  
The weekend event will include a tea, for which I will have some lovely accessories my Lady friend put together.  So it will be not Tea and Sympathy, but Tea and eat your hearts out you drab sissies!  I am however on the hot seat as my Lady friend requested that I provide a surprise to spice the event up.  Surprises are not something I do well, so I m still mulling over the possibilities.   I have been practicing a little High Protocol service which I will give her as an option.  There is also an age play pageant.   I know she enjoys age play, so I may enter.  At any rate, I think the weekend will offer an opportunity for a fun blog post.  ( I can perhaps surprise her with that)  after I return from the ashram, unless of course i enter the satcitananda of  the uncreated Brahman, in which case the rest of you are on your own.  

Stimulus and Response

Oh it ain't no good unless it hurts just a bit
John Cougar Mellancamp


It wasn't so very long ago that I referred to the people in the BDSM world as as the leather people.  I understood them to be kin in the big kinky family, but I thought of myself as separate.  My interests were in role playing, dominance and submission certainly, but I had no particular interest in the dynamic of pain.  At an event I had heard someone say that play was synonymous with pain, and thought that odd.   That was a couple of years ago, and my own relationship with BDSM has evolved.  More particularly, i have played with others and found that there can be much sensuality in giving and receiving pain in an intimate setting.  A Mistress favored me recently with a play date, involving a cane, and well .. there is no way around it.. canes hurt.  But the sensual way that She caned me, the attention to my body, to my reactions.  Well it was very erotic.  When I remarked following the session that the cane was rather painful when delivered to the back of the legs, she remarked that the ritual we were engaged in was called S&M for a reason.  Well said,  Mistress.
These experiences of pleasure at the end of pain parallel my experiences with avoiding orgasm, or more specifically avoiding ejaculation.  I seldom masturbate to ejaculation, and when i do, it is generally because i let something go too far if you know what i mean.  So being unpartnered at the moment, it is actually quite some time since ...  I fairly frequently engage in activity with vibrators, and other feminine fun, but with discipline that does not end in messiness.   I connect that discipline the pain of denial increasingly with a general increase in my sexual awareness.  I feel more often like a girl sexually... even having girly orgiastic spasms on the beach, as I described in the last post.   I have been trying to eat right and exercise lately, using a device in the basement to sprint until I am exhausted, which is taking longer than the initial 35 seconds thankfully.  Of course running is painful... I deal with it best by attending to something else, but today i noticed that running ...well it just made me feel all sexy... sexed up...  aroused.  Oh my!  Is it the pain that is arousing?   Is it the general arousal associated with my chastity?    At any rate I no longer find myself apart among the leather people.  I am the leather people.
I am off to the ashram for religious renewal for a week or so.    I almost forgot to mention for the record, I went to the hair salon and had my hair bleached.  It took 3 hours!  talk about feeling girly!  I had so much foil in my hair that I was picking up signals from Rigel.  This was the final step in my plan for moderate feminzation.   But more on that upon my return.

On the Beach

I am fortunate to live fairly close to a town that at its north end provides miles of fairly empty beach.  A little stroll up the beach, and you can find yourself alone with the ocean.   It is an experience that I have come to treasure more and more.
The ocean....imagine.. it formed 4 billion years ago, it covers most of the earth's surface.
Walking along the shoreline,  over and over hearing the sound of it.  Perhaps this is where the the sacred OM was first heard... the syllable of creation.    A few times now..lying in the sand by the ocean..i have had intense experiences... so intense as to be sexual.
The ancients described material existence as consisting of basic elements,  earth air fire and water.     The elements were alive and compelling at the shoreline... Earth.. turned to grains of sand by the ocean's power,  Air, the endless wind blowing ever shoreward, Fire  older than the ocean... heating my naked skin,  and Water...tasting it on the air.. hearing it,. smelling it,  feeling it... seeing it.. Mother Ocean, Goddess Ocean.
Two aspects of the experience have stayed with me.  First was the feeling of the greatness of this force that I was connecting with.  billions of years old, covering the earth, and that perhaps just an aspect, someone greater.  It was not difficult to realize my smallness, my momentary-ness.  And more i felt as if She was there all around, except for this darkness, or a fear, which was me.  I was that which resisted dissolving into the vastness for now.
The other aspect of this experience was that it was... sexual.  I found myself touching myself, particularly my breasts to enhance my consciousness of Her.  There is no question that the energies experienced in meditation have connections to sexual energy.  I have for a while associated intensity of energy in meditation with habits of controlling my sexual behavior from day to day, particularly refraining from orgasm.  ( Something which is easier for a girl on hormones than what those poor boys go through)   Still, this was an experience more like masturbation than meditation.   Specifically a fantasy of sexual encounter with Devi.  And you can't really say that a sexual encounter with the Goddess who is eternal, all pervading, and all knowing is a fantasy, at least I don't think you can.   At any rate, it is an experience that compels me, and I do want to repeat it.
But I may need to be patient.    Unfortunately,  even the most deserted beach i know is not completely deserted in June, and I need to feel alone to have this experience.  Worse, I spotted a green head fly near the dunes this week.. The foretaste of a horde.    The unforgettable experience of being repeatedly bitten by a swarm of hungry flies could be a kind of fore-play to a creature more splendid than I.   In fact, the only relief at that point is total immersion in the Ocean, though they do seem to have an uncanny ability to keep biting while underwater at least for a little while.  So I have a little time to think about my next encounter.  Being a lapsed Catholic, I am rather startled by the whole thing.  The little boy inside says... "that is not an acceptable way to know God. "  but then again St Theresa who is a better Catholic than I ever was, had experiences that might make a greenhead blush.
So following her example, i shall walk shoeless on the deserted shore, and seek ecstasy, just as soon as the flies leave.

Forever Female

"Philosophy is a walk on the slippery rocks.  Religion is a light in the fog"    Edie Brickell

It's summer time when the sensible retire to the beach shielding their faces from UV with the latest offering from James Patterson, and the unhinged search obsessively for discussions of the gender of the soul on the world wide web.  This offering will not give away any kickers regarding Alex Cross's latest exploits.
Surprisingly the immortal soul would appear to be a rather critical piece of the theological edifice, but descriptions of its quirks and qualities seem far removed.  Not much that rises above the description of a ghost or a wish or a hunch.  There seems to be a fair consensus that it is the type of thing that can get some nasty stains, which aren't going to get "Shouted Out", unless the shouting invokes the term Hallelujah liberally, otherwise there seems to be surprising indifference to what is going to die and what is going to continue.

I not surprisingly am interested in the question of whether the soul is gendered.   I have touched upon it briefly in a couple of recent entries,  Gender Queery , and Case-of-miss-taken-identity where I briefly talked about the biological and cultural side of things, where gender can get quite complicated and crazy.  The question of the soul is interesting because it is a question about essence.  Is gender an essential part of me, which is separate from my body and upbringing?  There is certainly an idea like that common in the transgender community when people talk about being born in the wrong body.  If I am born in the wrong body, then one conclusion would be that my soul has a different gender than my body.

In general,  I have found that religious traditions that teach a single ensoulment,  (they deny re-incarnation), are more likely to ascribe gender to the soul, but there isn't a consistent message.  It seems that the Bible, Quran, etc is either ambiguous or mute on the subject.  The philosophical traditions in which Western Theology grew, generally reflected the cultural norms which were everywhere in the ancient world, which is to say that " boys are better than girls"..nyah nyah nyah.  Having defined a weaker sex, it kind of messed up the even playing field that those immortal souls are supposed to be on,  so in my interpretation, the issue is largely ignored in doctrine.  For a very nice discussion of the issue from a wonderfully sensible Christian perspective,  I found a site which is more about the discussion of the immortality of souls..  Myth-one.com
There it is argued that immortal souls are not gendered, because gender exists to support reproduction which is not a something the immortals want to get involved with.  (Even a low birth rate leads to horrendous population problems when nobody dies)
 On the other hand, the popular view seems to be that if I am to survive death, then I certainly am gendered, and so that is that.   One religion clearly states that gender is eternal, supporting that popular view.  That is LDS, the mormons.  A fascinating discussion of this Gender, Mormonism and Transexuality  shows that while immutability of gender was declared by church leaders  to oppose some ideas in the transgender community regarding the mutability of gender.  These ideas of church leaders are quite consistent with the traditional view of a female or male soul being born in the wrong body.

This morning, I was reading the upanishads to get away from all this gender nonsense, and they supplied the answer without my asking , because the issue is central to the Eastern religious traditions.

naiva strI na pumAn esa na caivAyam napumsakah ....

This is not like a woman, not like a man, and not like a hermaphrodite...

Shvetashvatara Upanishat

and so....  I would perhaps like to envision my real self as forever female. After all i am accumulating a wardrobe that should make it through the first half of eternity.  What?  Souls don't require clothes?  They don't accessorize?  Now what really would be the point of that?   ... but probably not to be....Of course a couple of reincarnations as a tall thin red head...and then I'll hurry on to nirvana,   I promise.  OK I lied.. in the lastest one... well I didn't see it coming, but it turns out that Alex Cross was born a woman.. go figure.

Breasts, Bras and Boys

"Mess with the Goods... You Gotta Pay".

 Tattoed Love Boys  

Chrissie Hynde.

( Photo: Ms. Belinda Lee,  Actress,  1935-1961)

Stage 1:  Bra’s … who wears bras?  Bras are for girls.

At first it was the panties.  Always the panties.  It was that way for years.  I only have one older memory of bras.  I was at my Aunt’s house.  I was in her bedroom fully clothed sitting in front of her makeup table.  My Aunt was better endowed than my mother, and I remember sort of half wearing one of her bras.  Suddenly she was right there.   I don’t remember exactly what was said.. It sort of went like this:
1) She knew I was trying on one of her bras,
 2)  I was embarrassed,
 3) We never spoke of it, and life went on.

 I was in my mid-teens.

Even when I began to expand my interests,   nighties,  full slips,  lingerie in general… I never made too much of bras.  My main interest in them at that time was what they were concealing on the girls I knew.

Stage 2:  Filling a bra with nylons for that girlish figure.

So  bras were only a slight interest, when I began  dressing fully, or at least wearing skirts and blouses, and that didn’t really happen until I was married, which is my mid twenties, but even then.. my wife’s bras didn’t fit,  I mostly wore found items, and bras weren't a big part of it. 

So it was really after my first marriage ended that I began to wear bras at  dress up, I had purchased a few at   Lee's Mardi Gras.  I was in my early thirties.. Iwas slowly becoming interested in my own breasts. 

Stage 3:  I wish I had breasts! 

And things  developed from there.   I was in my fifties when I really began to embrace the bra, especially after my second marriage collapsed.  Then I began to acquire bras that fit better,  Underwire bras, that gave me a little extra lift.  The perfect bra?  satin, underwire to give my pathetic titties a little lift, without padding, so that anything brushing over my nipples.. (like my fingers!) felt great.  I began to wear them to bed!  I just felt totally butch if my chest wasn't encased in a sweet satin bra.

That went on for some time,

Stage 4:  I have breasts! And I love my bras. 

It was only in the past five years  that I began to work in earnest to try to fill those satin bra cups.  Herbal concoctions, and finally my friend estrogen.  

Wait some monthes.. some years, and voila… small but respectable titties.. and bras always with my outfits.
No more bras to bed.  Wearing them during the day and evening like a respectable woman, and really nothing.. nothing made me feel more like a woman than a bra.  

Stage 5:  Flashing the Goods

So this week I was invited to a party.  Not normally my kind of party is was a house party for T-girls and men.  Not a XX chromosome pair to be found anywhere.   I have been interested for some time in trying out some flirtatious fun with men.  They have been notably absent from my playlist, if you don't count sissy boys.  

So... I just thought..  corset, sheer silk blouse.. bra?  well no.. how about no bra.  My assets just visible.. my slightly enlarged nipples.. showing through my sheer printed blouse.   That might interest a man.

So I learned a lesson every girl is knows by the time she is 20.  You want to get a boy's attention,  flash him a little decolletage.   It's really true... simple creatures... very simple creatures.. who knew?

At any rate, I know now what it is to be oogled, and I know how forward men can be.   The party was just getting started when he took me into another room with him, and he told me that he had noticed how nice my breasts looked... He wanted a closer look... and well he wanted more... but this isn't that kind of blog.. and I am not that kind of girl.   Well anyway .. this isn't that kind of blog

So my romance with bras has come full circle, and I have learned the virtues of a sheer silk blouse.

Androgyne About Town.

"Ah here's the androgyne! Helen cried as I entered the room".
 Miss High Heels. 1931, privately published, Author unknown.

 Androgyne. A word that has always had a certain fascination since I first encountered it in the quote above. It has been a long slow awakening for me. Fetishist? Transvestite? Transsexual? Should I  finally reject them all and embrace the taunt that Helen had tossed at Denise,  "Androgyne".

Andros and Gynos  , male and female united in a single individual.  In the tantric traditions, the divine androgyne is an ideal form

Called ArdhanarIshvara  (ardha-nari-ishvara;  half - woman - god), the androgynous divinity is worshipped as a union beyond the oppositions of male and female.   Alas in Hindu culture, those who come closest to a physical manifestation of this synthesis, the Hijra, or third gender, MtF transgendered individuals  are not necessarily treated so well.  (Cancel the flight to Delhi)   Prostitution being a common profession, due in part to the usual discrimination against TG individuals one sees in the largely traditional society.

I frequently these days at home dress androgynously.  I wear bra and panties, perhaps woman's slacks, camisole with my modest titties prominent, open shirt over it  very light makeup, if any.  Some rings, necklace,  boy earrings.   My hair is in a pony tail, with a femme flourish, a nice hair attachment or teased out bangs.  femme socks.  Out I dress boy or girl.  Ok  maybe slightly swishy boy, or girl.

This is all on my mind, because I plan to go in a couple of days to a "munch" which I was invited to soemtime ago by a charming woman who recommended the group to me.  A munch is basically a meeting in a diner or something like that where kinky people can come and meet each other in an informal setting.  ( sort of like the school dance for adults)  The munch is in a restaurant during regular business hours, so they request that people not look too outlandish.   She told me that I passed as a woman, so I could attend the munch as one.  (Did I mention that she was utterly charming if not perhaps completely truthful)  But I don't really intend to do that since I have never been to this place, and I am going by myself.
So I thought I would consciously go androgynously, dressing sort of as I dress at home,  effeminate boy/girl.  

I have never really consciously done this, so I am a little nervous,  Its a boy/girl world,  If  in a dress, they call you Maam, and in jeans they call you Sir.   Androgyne?  I guess they will just say Hey You.

And there is one big problem that the androgyne faces, that the ardhanarIshvara never had to confront,

Bathrooms.    There are Boys & Girls rooms ( or perhaps Buoys and Gulls...i live by the shore).  And while there is occasionally the blessed unisex w.c.   There are never specific accommodations for the androgyne, which is to say, I need to choose, and to choose the Lady's room.. well that it only an option for me in full femme mode, and usually I am in a place that I know very well.  I hate  loud noises... screams, police sirens.

So there you have it except for my jacket and my sneakers, I won't likely be wearing a stitch of men's clothing,..... tits, hairdo, jewels .... not fabulous... but certainly not the repellant drab.

 Still  (sigh!!)  it must be the Gents......

Oh the life of the androgyne is filled with humiliations.... but not quite what Denise nee Dennis imagined.