Blurred Gender Roles

Having been in contact with a few other masking and latex sites I've been denied permission to post their pictures, so it looks as though the overall format of the site will be a little different than I first envisioned, but that's ok. I'll just make link-references instead of showing specifically what I'm talking about.

To the point..

Throughout the bulk of the past few years I have predominantly browsed sites that deal with female masking, which generally consists of men wearing women's clothing and female masks. The two sites that I check religiously for such material are Closet Monster and Maskon.
So from exposing myself to such sites normally I believed that I was interested in only a small sub-category of the latex fetish.
This idea was reinforced through the the fact that nearly every latex-related site that I checked almost always depicted women wearing rubber of every sort imaginable, where one would generally be hard-pressed to be able to find males in any of these pictures unless they were anonymous looking fellows who were only there to fulfill some functional or conceptual purpose to the central female character.
Now it's not that I have a problem with women dressed in latex, nor do I think it's especially sexist that males don't pop up too often on these sites, but for some reason I just get bored looking at latex ladies. It may be the simplicity or the fact that I did it up through my early teens or just the lack of originality at times, but I can't help but yawn at the idea of the standardization of a fetish.
Although, I can't count out the influence that the centralized, strong, feminine figures depicted on such sites had on me. Their embodiment of sexuality and almost larger-than-life portrayal has had a powerful influence on the way in which I view sexuality. Although, I previously thought that the way in which I engaged these pictures was a bit obscure because upon seeing these females on screen I wasn't thinking, "I want to be with someone who looks like that" but rather, "I want become someone who looks like that." This kind of thinking, of course, has led me to my interest in masking and cross-dressing.

For a long time I felt like I was an abnormality among latex fetishists because I am a straight male who has had the intense urge to dress as a female (in latex). I used to think it was just some phase that I was going to outgrow, but over time my urges intensified and got to a point where they needed some sort of realization, which ended up not happening until about a year ago.
From being able to actually live-out a fantasy and having the opportunity to share the experience with someone in-person it made me feel much less weird about my latex and cross-dressing fetishes. After this experience I started making more purchases to help nurture my interests, although I still have not been entirely satisfied.
As my comfort with myself and my urges grew I decided to join a few latex related online communities. Initially I was expecting to find a greater number of men than women (which I was right about) and I also expected that the men would dress as latex guys and the ladies would dress as rubber girls, but I was pleasantly surprised.

After browsing a few online communities I found that there were predominantly four kinds of profiles. Starting with the most rare and moving to the most predominant; single women who enjoy wearing rubber and in their galleries are dressed as, well, women. Couples who have pictures of themselves dressed in rubber. Single men who have mugshot-like pictures of their faces (and one can generally see a rubber collar) and are generally looking for a real relationship with a real woman. Single men who have a few photos of themselves dressed as rubber-men. Finally I found that most of the gm's (genetic males) dressed as either rubber dolls or latex-clad women. I also found, through reading their profiles, that nearly all of them are straight males who do not cross-dress publicly.
I was delighted to find that there were not only others who feel like me, but rather the majority did. However, I didn't actually go down each community list and meticulously read through each profile. So I could be wrong about this rubber male CD group being the largest, but I can easily say that it's not uncommon to find many of them in these online communities.

In the past I had never really given my urges all that much thought, because I believed I was one of a hand-full who had these tendencies. However with this newly discovered popularity of straight males cross-dressing, it got me thinking more deeply about the reason behind why it's become so normal for gm's to dress as rubber-women.

The first, most obvious, and most probable reason for this is the fact that cross-dressing has been around since there has been gender-specific clothing. Therefore it is not all that far fetched that this trend would continue, especially among the latex fetish community because any man who is brave enough to post somewhat provocative pictures of themselves on the net are also probably sexually comfortable and secure enough to share their cross-dressing interest without fear.

Another theory as to why it has become so normal for men with latex fetishes to dress as women is because in this day and age most people (initially) draw their knowledge about perversions and fetishes from the internet. So for anyone who has spent some time searching around the web for fetish or specifically latex related sites will find that the vast majority of the material is female related. What I mean by this is that most pay-sites depict women, which makes perfect sense because most patrons of these sites are straight men. Also when one browses online latex shops they will find that the women's section is quite a bit larger and far more interesting than the men's section.
So from this trend of feminine prevalence in latex culture, it has created an atmosphere where women are not only centralized and idealized, but they are idolized. And as we know with any focus of admiration or worship, you'll eventually get people trying to emulate their look and behavior.
Taking it a step away from the somewhat religious tone, I think through the fact that women get all the attention and all the cool clothes, it leaves men wanting to fully experience what they have seen on screen (women) through emulation (dressing as women).

Another reason for straight males CDing could merely be the nature of latex fetishism. In my somewhat limited experience with latex, I've found that at times it's like a drug. You get your first item and you play with it and it's great, but then over time you start to get bored with it. Then you get another item and it's fun and great, but again you get bored and want more and more and more! until you get into different sub-categories of latex, and go to greater lengths to satisfy your thirst for rubber excitement. So I figure that while going through different off-shoots of latex fetishism, one is bound to land on cross-dressing. And it seems that many men who land there tend to stay a while.

As a result of this trend I've run into a few issues surrounding gender in general when dealing with males who dress as women. The first and most obvious is when dealing with others like myself I used to feel confused as to which gender to refer to them as. Initially I tried to merely dodge the subject, but over enough time it became apparent that I needed to figure out how to handle it.
Using myself as an example, I thought about what I would like to be called if someone contacted me having seen pictures of me masked and in women's clothing. I think that if they called me 'she' then I would feel inclined to say 'i am a guy,' but at the same time feel flattered. On the other hand I figured that if I refer to someone as 'he' then it kind of negates their female persona. So I decided to just call anyone who is going to dress like a woman as 'she' and thus far it's been pretty well understood that we both know that they're male..

closing thoughts.

So now it seems that we are left with a latex culture that is overrun by rubber women, but of varying gender.
I personally love the idea of breaking down the barriers of gender and being able to dress according to our mood. And as the walls are falling it leaves us without the general stereotypes holding males and females in their place, instead we are free to truly be individuals who can as easily choose our face, sex, or even species as easily as one changes their clothes. It's truly an amazing phenomenon that would be a wonder to see in society, but at the same time I think that the very reason why this freeform interpretation of gender exists has a lot to do with the fact that we are selectively involved in it and that it is contained in a small group of people who made the conscious choice to partake.

For the most part, my involvement in the latex community has been a delight and I have met some extremely kind and down to earth people of whom I can just as easily talk about the weather as I can about CDing and rubber!