This is the second post in what will be a series from our friend and moderator Gr8legs. It’s his personal tale of becoming acquainted and comfortable with his feminine side, panty wearing and cross-dressing. It’s a lovely deep read and my sincere thanks go to Gr8legs for sharing this with us all.
Meeting “Ava”
Recently I have found myself able to be a little more open about wearing female attire. Since I began reading Hope’s articles around 7 months ago, my level of acceptance of my love of lingerie has grown, in the same way that the sense of shame & guilt I’ve carried about it has diminished. This has also been helped greatly by the fact that new lady in my life not only accepts this, but actually enjoys it and finds it to be quite a turn-on.
I love pantyhose and tights. I have been wearing them either under my trousers when I’m out and about, or when I’m at home alone for more than a year now. It has now reached the stage where I almost no longer feel “normal” if I am not wearing hosiery in some form. I have taken to wearing tights with shorts when going home from the gym. I wear black opaque tights. They feel more comfortable than wearing long trousers over my legs after a workout, as I find that, the material of the trousers can cling to my legs in a manner that is most uncomfortable. Tights, on the other hand, cover my legs and keep the chill off them, but without clinging and restricting movement. The first time I did this I was a bit apprehensive. I put them on in the men’s changing room in front of and whilst talking to a couple of guys who had been participants in my boxing circuit class. Neither of them batted an eyelid or even gave them a second glance as I rolled up the legs and rolled them up my legs, pulled my shorts over the top of them & stuck my feet in my shoes.
Sometimes on my way home I may need to call into a shop, or a filling station; I haven’t had any comments or adverse reactions. Nor have I noticed anyone giving me strange looks, I think most people just assume they must be runner’s tights. I would dearly love to be able to openly wear other tights during the daytime, but must admit I’m not brave enough for that one…. yet.
In the last week of June, I bought myself a pair of ladies’ boots from a shop. Although I had never dressed fully as a woman, these knee length boots have 3½” heels and I thought they’d look quite sexy with stockings (I was right). I went into the shop 10 minutes before closing time (when the shop was quiet), tried them on and bought them. The young girl (about 19) who served me didn’t actually see me trying the boots on, but did see me fastening the laces of my running shoes afterwards. She seemed slightly taken aback and perhaps a little embarrassed, but was otherwise friendly and we chatted about her weekend plans as I paid for the boots.
During the following week I also tried on a bustier for size in a department store. This particular chain doesn’t always have an attendant checking how many items you’re taking in & out of the changing rooms, so I hid it under a couple of T-shirts. I’m glad I did as it was a little too tight under the arms & I was able to then put it back and buy one the next size up.
Then, last week, on June 30th, I did something I never thought I would be able to do. I was in a store belonging to a major lingerie chain, perusing potential purchases and found a very nice black satin waist cincher. There was one other customer in the shop and once she’d left, I took it to the assistant – a young lady in her mid-twenties – and asked if I could try it on. She was momentarily a little taken aback, but quickly composed herself, said “Sure!” She checked the changing rooms and led me to a cubicle to try it on. After I’d been in for a minute or so, she asked how I was going and I asked if she could lace it up for me. I was wearing plain black, silky bikini panties and nude hi-gloss pantyhose as well as the cincher when she came into the cubicle and, after tightened the laces, she commented that it was a good fit.
When I exited the changing room after dressing and went to pay for my new acquisition, I felt she was a little awkward about the situation – or maybe I was projecting my own feelings onto her – but she was friendly and composed as she explained the washing care for the waist cincher. I explained that I was aware that it should be hand-washed and then squeezed, not wrung, to remove excess water. We were both a bit more relaxed by then and she added that It should be laid flat to dry and then told me that a lot of female customers who return corsetry, do so complaining that the boning has lost its shape as a result of machine washing. I thanked her and left the shop feeling extremely smug and happy with myself that I’d finally plucked up the courage to do this.
It was actually a lot less awkward than I’d imagined. As I have discovered with my ever-growing confidence and sense of comfort in myself, facing your fears is rarely as painful as we imagine it to be.
Then came this week and along came Ava.
I had been thinking about Jung’s theories regarding the Anima/Animus and relating this to the emergence of my own growing level of comfort in living with and expressing my feminine self. I began joking with myself about having fun with my anima and started thinking about “her” and what kind of woman “she” would be, if she were a living, breathing person.
I thought that, obviously, she’s be my height and I saw her as having a fairly slim, athletic build – probably about a women’s size 12 (US 
– with long, dark and silky straight hair. I sensed her to be quite a sexy and sensual being, almost feline in her appearance and demeanour. This was quite ironic as I myself relate very much to dogs and see myself as a “dog person” with a number of characteristics one would normally associate with canines. The fact that I saw my anima, my “other self” as having predominantly feline characteristics made a lot of sense. The highly sexual and sensual females are often portrayed through the media as feline characters.
In many ways I saw her to be a lot like the Na’vi creatures in the Avatar movie. The Na’vi are quite feline in their appearance, with long, straight hair. Although its storyline is primarily that of an action-adventure, one of the main themes of the movie is that of a journey of self-discovery. The word Avatar itself, is a Hindu term for the manifestation or appearance of a deity.
It was with these factors in mind that I decided to abbreviate Avatar to “Ava” as a name to associate with my anima.
I do not wish to be called Ava, even when dressed I feminine attire, but have found myself relating to her as another person who is a part of me, almost a form of symbiotic partner sharing the same body.
I had never fully understood the way in which crossdressers call themselves by female names, other than the fact that it would seem strange to address a person who has a completely feminised appearance by a strongly male name, e.g. Frank. I now understand that this female persona they take on when they dress is their avatar.
