Newsgroups: alt.transgendered
Subject: Names...
From: anonymus+3222@godiva.nectar.cs.cmu.edu (Silk)
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 12:28:20 GMT
Organization: Anonymous contact service

Hi.  This is my first post here, but what with the news about the anonymus
posting service, I felt that I should get off my lazy rear and post to here
while I still can do it anonymously.  I don't know if I will ever get up the
courage to post here again, since my entire household reads net.news, and
I still haven't brought up the subject to any of them.  Maybe I'll be back.
Maybe not.

Anyways, as for how I picked my femme-name, well, I simply went through
a bunch of names in my head, of women that I knew, and I found that I
personally liked the sound of, and the associations my mind made with,
the name Karen.

My last name was harder, but I thought a bit, and considered how last
names are made.  Most family names are derived from three things: Places
that ancestors lived at or near (A lot of nonsense sounding names derive
from this; there were a lot of places with interesting names.  =),
ancestor's names (ie: Johnson, Son of John), or jobs.  (Smith, Cooper,
or Wright)

I decided that of those I liked the idea of a place-type name.  I thought
of what sort of places I like and came up with things like Wood, Forrest,
and Rivers.  I liked the associations I made with Rivers best, so it stuck.

I still don't have a chosen middle name, but reading the other posts, and
other people's name choices, I'm mildly inclined to also choose "Lynn", both
because it rolls nicesly off the tongue, and because I have a very nice
friend I have met over the network who's last name is Lynn.  Hmm.  In fact,
I think I'll make it official:  Karen Lynn Rivers.  (Thank you to Kelly
Martin for (inadvertently) bringing the middle name to light for me, and
I appologize if it appears that I am stealing it, but it feels right, and
It honors (in a way) a friend of mine that I feel deserves much good.)

My parents once told me that if I had been born a girl, they would have
named me Denali.  I just don't think that I would like being named after
a Tibetan mountain, though.  =)

As for my Nickname listed above, "Silk", I chose that simply because I
love the feel of soft things, and often, I think of myself as having some
of the same qualities.  I've been told that I am a very gentle person and
that I am a 'soft touch.'  I like to make people happy around me and I am
pretty empathic of people's moods, but I also tend to make myself very
scarce, and particularly out of the way when I sense the least tensions
in the air.  (This leads to problems, sometimes.)  I thought that the
softness of Silk was the mood image that best fit my self image.  I guess
it's fairly obvious now that I think of things in moods and shades of
feeling, what with my comments about the feel of this or that, or the
way I choose things by mental associations. =)

My, that was a lot of rambling on about names.  I'll change subject now
and ramble on about something else.

I have only ever told two people about my crossdressing.  One was my mother,
when I was caught by her once.  She was very understanding, and did NOT
give me a hard time about it.  We get along quite well, and I love her for
being who she was while I grew up.  She DID gently discourage me from
Crossdressing, but mostly along the lines of "Well, just don't get caught
when you would embarass yourself, and don't let your father catch you."
Actually my father did catch me one time, but he went ballistic, and we
were both rather freaked out.  This happened about 7 or 8 years ago, and
he's never mentioned it since that day.  I think that he thinks (or hopes)
that the incident scared me out of doing it again.

I also explained it to a male room-mate I once had, who also caught me in
the act.  His response was pretty much "Oh, Okay." =)  We never talked of
it again.

Generally, I have a hard time discussing this with people that I can see
face to face, I guess.  In the household that I live in, if I were to
reveal that I crossdress, the response would range from, "Whatever turns
you on." to "Oh, Okay.  Neat."  (I live in a _very_ liberal household.)
But, I just can't talk about it.  It's ingrained deeply in me that I can't
let anyone else know my secret.  I suppose that part of my fear is fed by
the memory of going with some friends of mine (a gay male couple) to an
amusement park, and watching a woman yell at them for kissing in public,
ruining the whole day.  Posting here is a relief that's hard to believe,
saying all the things that I've kept pent up.

Ah, and the secret itself... what lies under it?  How did it start?
Thinking back on it now, I guess it started when I was about 9 or 10.
I used to envy girls.  I used to think (erroniously, I now believe) that
life is easier for them; that people have lower expectations for them to
live up to.  (Ahh, the foolishness of being a child.)

Later, I envied how women were allowed to dress in nearly any type of
clothes, and how they could wear the softest clothes.  Around this time,
I 'borrowed' some pantyhose and panties from my mother.  Nowadays, I go
out and either buy the clothes "For my wife/sister, Karen", or go buy
some soft fabric at a fabric store just to drape around me or lie on
in bed.

I think that I have to admit that I am just a crossdressing fetishist,
rather than a transexual.  Though my deepest fantasies are often about
becoming a woman, they are usually  of a very sensual nature, and when I
crossdress, I do it mostly for the soft feel of the clothing.  Part of the
reason I crossdress is also because the clothes ARE womens's clothes, not
simply because they are soft.  Mood associations again.

Though I would LOVE to be able to be a woman for a few hours, days, or
weeks, I don't think I could commit myself to a permanent decision
like The Operation.


Most of my teenage and college years, I was uncertain about my sexual
status and feelings, and it has only been in the last year or two that
I have found some answers.  Though I wish I were a woman, I still find
women extremely attractive to me.  I have to find this a bit funny: I'm
a wanna-be transexual lesbian.  =)  I've thought about things a long
while, and I don't believe that I'm bisexual.  But maybe I just haven't
found the right man yet.  (Or woman for that matter. =)

The closest thing that I have ever done to crossdressing in public was
during a halloween, when I wore a costume that was partly made from a
lycra/spandex bodysuit.  I have worn panties under my normal men's wear,
though.

Well, I've rambled long enough.  I have covered pretty much all the bases,
though, that I wanted to discuss.  And thank you all for providing a kind
ear.  *warm hugs and smiles*

	- Silk

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