Why Erin? The story of my transition, part II
A while ago, I wrote about a childhood of repression and fetishism, my subsequent foray into vanilla manhood, and the failure of it all that sent my searching for myself in New York City. I was sidetracked by more current issues, but figured that tonight’s a good night to revisit my life story.
Upon moving to NYC, I had one last vanilla relationship that went nowhere before my curiosity with the BDSM scene returned. It was the summer of 2006 and I had nothing to lose, so I showed up alone at a small, now-defunct Brooklyn BDSM club. The direction of my life was moved irreversibly. It was the last night I would present myself as male (only), my first serious bondage scene, and my first experience with a male partner. As easy as it was to strip naked and let some guy I never met tie me up, it was strangely difficult to tell my new friends that I wanted to dress as a girl next time. Well, we all start somewhere.
Before I knew it, I had shaved my body for the first time and was being taken out shopping for women’s clothes. Extremely self-conscious and paranoid about my newfound lack of body hair and the fact that I was a boy shopping in the girl’s section, I managed to survive and bring home some fishnets and a miniskirt. Later on that week, I came out to a vanilla friend and she took me out to finish the outfit with a spaghetti strap top and stiletto heels. Looking back, I really didn’t do too bad, as I’ll still wear a similar outfit to fetish clubs when I’m not feeling like squeezing into a corset.
At that point, I was still just a cross-dressing boy with a kinky submissive side, but I had already started floating across the gender spectrum (and top/bottom spectrum for that matter). I knew I was somewhere in the middle of it all, and figuring it out wouldn’t be easy. Regardless of what would come next, I knew I needed a new identity…
