Explore or Turn Away?

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.

Frank Herbert

How true.

How often in the scene we run across people who are into different things than ourselves. How do we react?

There are two main reactions that most people have. We are either open and curious, or we are dismissive and turn away. One path leads to greater knowledge. The other, closes us off from knowledge and possibly from other people and opportunities.

Granted, there are some pretty wild kinks out there. Some of them seem pretty strange, funny or scary to us. But to the people who practice them, who are turned on by them and who embrace them, they are very important.

Sometimes we can't help our initial recoil or negative reaction to hearing of someones fetish or kink that we are unfamiliar with. We are human and a lot of us came into the scene after years of vanilla upbringing. It's not that we aren't willing to learn, but sometimes we get surprised by things when they hit us in the face unexpectedly.

Following is a post originally written in September of 2007. When I first met my love, I was unaware of his 'fem' side. It came as a bit of a shock. I had a choice to make. The question I had to ask myself was "Do I run away because it was not something I was used to, because I didn't understand it, or do I stay and learn about it?"....

Read on:

Life with a crossdresser....6 months later. So what's it like?

I wondered that when I first learned that my carina was...well, my 'carina'...lol

I was used to 'guys' and 'girls' and sure I had gay friends and lesbian friends and stuff, but what would life actually be like when you loved someone who was not locked into a specific society approved gender role?

I must admit, it was a challenge at first.. I researched gender roles and gender bending and gender crossing. I read everything I could find, I looked at pictures and talked to TV's and CD's and anybody who would listen...

What did I find?

I found what I guess I really knew all along. That we are all in some way a mix of male and female, some way at one end or the other, the rest somewhere in between. And that's just the beginning

What I also found(and no disrespect to those at the far ends, in societies 'approved roles') is that those in the middle, who are more of a blend of male and female, while maybe a bit odd and confused at times, are some of the most honest, courageous, funny and enjoyable people I have ever known.

Practically, living with a person of 'mixed gender' is absolutely delightful! I have a boyfriend, a girlfriend, all in one. We share makeup, we pick out panties together (hmmm..hers are prettier than mine too..I'm always jealous! lol), she has great taste in jewelry, clothes, etc.... and yet I still get doors opened for me, and he can do all that 'guy' stuff! It's awesome. I have the best of both worlds!

I adore my carina, as a man, as a girl, (s)he is both and neither, something in between, carina is a unique individual. Carina wears boy clothes sometimes and girly things sometimes depending on which she feels like(except panties, those are almost every day). The other day, I told her or him (I sometimes use the adjectives interchangeably) "Sometimes I don't even notice when you wear girly things, but I definitely DO notice when you have not worn girly things for a while, because i miss seeing you looking so pretty!" lol. Never imagined I would feel that way.

He took his boat out and went fishing today.. and when he got home he said "I wore boy underwear today" (He wears panties almost exclusively now) so I said joking "Oh, so if you drowned and they found you they wouldn't find you in panties?", she says.. "Oh, no! I didn't want to get all icky, fishing in my pretty things!".. I just howled.. it was precious!!!

So living with a person of mixed gender is pretty much wonderful...I'm not sure how I got so lucky to not just know him, but to be loved by her too. I look forward to a lifetime of watching him develop and grow, the gurl inside blossoming after a lifetime of living only inside of him, watching carina become a whole person, neither just male, nor just female but beautiful blending of both. I see both when I look at him (How i wish there were an adjective for those in the middle, because neither 'him' nor 'her' really fit my carina to me...oh well..some day when the world becomes more tolerant)

I love you my carina -- and here I am 6 months later - and I'll still be here 6 years later and beyond.

And beyond that. Loving him, because I was confronted with something I didn't understand and was willing to learn and gain the knowledge instead of turning away because I didn't understand it.

I'm no saint. There are lots of kinks I don't understand and never will quite 'get' or want to be a part of. There are several kinks that totally squick me and just give me the willies. But there is no harm in accepting them enough to learn about them. So often when we do, we find new worlds opened up to us and new avenues of learning. We find new people who come into our lives and enrich it in ways that wouldn't have happened had we turned away without exploring.

Be open to discovery. Force yourself if necessary. I'll pretty much guarantee you won't be disappointed!