It started with rainbows, and it continued with rainbows.
When I had initially bought into the rainbows, I expected it to be a one-off thing: a gag that I would use one time, but then go back to the more limited form of expression, just wearing my silly hat and nothing more. But what I found was that in presenting in a different way, I was having fun. Yes, it was a goofy outfit – it was based around a silly starting point, and got intentionally sillier – but I enjoyed the silliness, and wanted to embrace it.
By engaging in silly behavior, I gave myself free reign to explore something different than what I would normally do, and when given the freedom to do so, I found I enjoyed it. And so I started looking for other ways to expand on that. What else was out there?
And so I started looking for rainbows everywhere. On Amazon, on Etsy, on other women’s clothing sites, I started making lists of all of the rainbow colored stuff I could find. I made an Amazon Wishlist of all of the rainbow things I could find on Amazon – and unlike my initial purchases, I didn’t limit myself to just silly things like tutus, but also more “normal” femme clothing, like a rainbow colored retro dress and a rainbow costume corset. Sure, these were still things that were not going to be worn out of the house, but some of the items were more clothing rather than costumery. It was the first part of exploring wearing more femme clothing and seeing if I liked it.
Now, this is an area which is a bit fraught for me, personally. At times in my life, exploring cross-dressing has been something I’ve done – whether it be a college-era halloween costume where I’m going for the goth femme look, or a fleece skirt picked up at a rummage sale – but my partner hasn’t always been particularly understanding of this from me. This is one of the reasons why engaging in silly behavior felt safer for me: Oh, it’s not about cross-dressing, it’s about being silly for stream! I’ve always been silly for stream, why would that matter now? etc. By setting up an environment where I can explore these things in a different space, I can explore how I feel about them – what I enjoy, what I don’t, and so on.
So I did. I shared my Amazon wishlist with folks who came to watch me stream, and actually got a couple items from it from friends… and from my wife.
The corset was the first item I had bought which moved things in an explicitly femme direction. Sure, a tutu isn’t exactly masculine, but it fits under the goofy label. Other than that, everything was pretty genderless (or like the bow-tie, was explicitly masculine). At first I wasn’t sure how it would work out, but in the end, I really enjoyed wearing it. It was still a costume, but it was a look that I had fun with. Some of that fun was from making other people feel uncomfortable with how I was dressed: I’ve always been the type of person who enjoys making people feel uncomfortable with me doing something unconventional. But some of it was just that I looked at the me I saw in the camera/on stream, and it was fun: it felt like exploring a different side of who I was, someone being more playful, and I liked that.
As a first step into playing with a more femme look, playing with costumes isn’t a bad way to go.
