Sex Education

 Things have been a bit busy recently but there are a couple of things I wanted to talk about. Firstly I mentioned joining Twitter last month and I've really been enjoying it. My captions have been doing quite well (I think, anyway) and it's also taught me the value of brevity as I only have 140 characters to play with. Doing a new caption for the Haven recently I could feel myself editing it a bit more so hopefully it has sharpened up my skills a bit. 

Now, like a lot of other Doctor Who fans have been doing recently, I have started watching Sex Education on Netflix as one of the main roles is played by the new Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa. The show had been on my list for a while but other things had taken precedence so this was as good an excuse as any to begin. For the uninitiated, the show is a comedy drama which revolves around teenager Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) and his sex therapist mother Jean (Gillian Anderson). Otis attends sixth form at Moordale Secondary School (which weirdly seems to resemble an American high school) and with another pupil, Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackey) starts an under-the-wire sex clinic of his own advising his fellow students for money. Gatwa plays his gay best friend Eric Effiong. From here on in the spoilers for season one start so please look away now if you are still wanting to watch this and go in cold (please come back if you do though. I'll still be here, hopefully). 

Promo poster for Season One of Sex Education
(L to R: Ncuti Gatwa as Eric, Emma Mackey as Maeve and Asa Butterfield as Otis)
Credit: IMDB

The episode I want to discuss is the fifth episode of season one (no title given) which (surprise, surprise) involves crossdressing. It's Eric's 17th birthday and he and Otis have tickets to a screening of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Both dress in drag for the event and both have very different evenings. While Otis gets side-lined by Maeve and the main plot which involves finding out who has been sending photographs of school mean girl Ruby's vagina to everyone, Eric continues on alone. If he were already being written by Russell T Davies he would doubtless be a super confident charmer and would mostly probably seduce someone at the bus stop but not so much here. We are not in some bustling metropolis but a small town and you feel for Eric as he stands alone at a wooden shack of a bus stop out in the woods. On his own and out of his element he retreats into himself and I know just how he feels. Two lads approach and he turns away and tries to hide himself in a place where he has nowhere to run which is another feeling I know all too well. I often wear a big coat if I can which is all the better for covering yourself up from other people. At least the station platform I often frequent is longer than Eric's bus stop. Noticing his birthday badge though one of the youths smiles and says that not only is it his birthday too but offers Eric a drink and compliments his outfit. 

Sadly that's the best that Eric's evening gets. Not only does Otis never show but his coat is stolen and he gets attacked on his way home. Calling Jean for a lift he returns home with her only to have a bust up with Otis over his desertion. Over the next couple of episodes he's a broken man, choosing less flamboyant clothing and trying not to be seen eventually getting into fights and being suspended from school. I have to say I have been feeling this a little at the moment too due to what happened to me at work a couple of weeks ago. While I've never been the type to scorch the Earth, I haven't painted my nails again since. This being television it does have a happy ending though as Eric rediscovers himself through a service at his local church and a stranger with fierce nails on his way to a wedding. A school dance proves his big opportunity for a comeback and of course he makes up with Otis. 

For Otis himself I'm pleased to see that, being straight, he has no qualms about dressing in drag and attending the show with his friend. No feeling of being made to do it or embarrassment (well no more than that of an average awkward teen). I have to wonder where they both got the outfits though and despite saying it's a yearly thing they do it seems like the first time unless of course it's normally something they do at home. I'm just nitpicking though. Even Otis gets compliments on his outfit which, again is nice to see. We don't have universal acceptance or universal hatred but something inbetween which is what real life is like. Otis may be a little sheepish about his new look but he shrugs it off as no big deal and no-one particularly makes fun of him either. Of course he also stays within the confines of their cosy town and not into the wider world like Eric. 

One final person I would like to mention in all this is Eric's dad, Abeo Effiong (DeObia Oparei), who goes on a journey of his own towards acceptance of his son. A couple of episodes earlier he catches Eric in drag and demands he remove it so you get the impression this he is your typical religious, unaccepting father. In episode five he tries to stop Eric going out in drag by almost pleading with him to rethink his outfit. I recognise this too from the time I told my own parents by turning up at their house wearing a denim miniskirt. It's that same look of trying to work it out, trying to make sense of it and also the realisation that your child has just painted a target on their back, the 'oh he's going to get the shit kicked out of him' look. I can sympathise so much with that. Later when Eric returns home he can tell that something has happened but Eric is in no mood for talking. The next morning he spares his blushes with the rest of the family by making up a cover story and when Eric rediscovers himself and gets dressed up for the dance his father offers to drive him. Outside the school they have a heart to heart and Abeo admits he admires his brave son and that maybe he should be braver himself. Revealing his background as an immigrant made me realise that he must have been hiding for a lot of his life, scared to put his head above the parapet, and that there must be people in this country who have been settled for over 50 years but still have that same sense of keeping their heads down lest somebody try to throw them out. 

I must admit I didn't expect any crossdressing in this show and I doubt it will happen again but I'm glad at the way it was handled.

The Capping Years: 2012

When I was thinking about what captions I wanted to put up for this, Taking Her Place was one at the top of the list. This caption was created for Crow over at Rachel's Haven and is still one of my favourites. 

It features another in the line of alien entities who seem to like messing with accepted roles and DNA. I only did a couple with The Persuader in the end perhaps because it took too much thought to think up the phrases I would need to use but it might be nice to go back to it at some point. Switching clothes and personalities is always a fun topic for me and although this doesn't feature a clothes swap it gets quite close to it. I'm also pleased with the final line which indicates that balance will be restored and she will take his place. 

I'm still playing around with my style here as can be seen by the bold colours of the text box and background and I'm still using a thinner font than I eventually ended up staying with. I think it fits the character too. This was one of the longest stories I had done at the time at least in one picture.

EDIT: I was thinking about this again and one thing that did niggle me was the amount of time Amy was ill as opposed to the amount of time it took for Charlie to change however in these days of COVID and self isolation it doesn't seem that outlandish any more. 

Taking Her Place (2012)

10 Years On

Tonight is a double celebration as not only is it 10 years to the day that I started this blog but this is also my 300th post which has worked out quite nicely. 

Looking back at my first post I hadn't really begun dressing much at all yet. I was just about to start doing cosplay and I wasn't even thinking of dressing on a regular basis and if so then it would just be for a bit in my bedroom privately with an ice princess dress I was dared into buying online. It's true I never thought I would start dressing en femme. Oh maybe with a willing sexual partner but I was never that good at romance so girlfriends were few and far between in fact my longest relationship wasn't going to happen for another year or so. In fact early on I was told that dressing would be a good icebreaker. So it was a secret I thought I would take with me to the grave but things change and I could see ways that I could do what I wanted and even more so people wouldn't want to punch my lights out or recall in disgust. 

I've tried to keep this blog up as best I can but sometimes life gets in the way. In fact I said I wouldn't turn it into a cap blog and to be fair I still haven't but I have started talking about them more on here and they seem to be popular posts. In fact I think my most popular has turned out to be one linking to a Role Exchanger story. I'm still amazed that so many people from around the world read this and I hope that I've inspired people with it even if it makes just one person consider acting on their impulse to dress or maybe take up crossplay and hopefully see that it's not so bad. 

Looking back I can't believe how far I've come in the last decade and how much better it feels now doing something I never thought I would dare to. Sure it's not gone smoothly and life at the moment isn't perfect but I still don't know what that looks like for me. These days although I still love clothes I'm finding myself with less wardrobe space and looking forward to maybe doing make-up. Hopefully it will be fun finding out. 

Thank you to everyone for reading my digital scribblings over the past 10 years!

The Capping Years: 2011

 I knew exactly the cap I wanted to put up for 2011...and then I re-read it and discovered that I made it in a different year so had to pick again. 

There's quite a few I had in mind looking through my old stuff, for example Red Dress Redemption was an early favourite, I introduced my Neighbour Virus and Reflections concepts, Lego Lady was my first caption contest win, The New Lisa allowed me to write up an old fantasy of mine (one of my earliest), In Custody was another favourite and the first chav cap I did and A Punky Phase remains a Medallion of Zulo cap I still love. 

One thing I also noticed was that my caps are a bit more positive and featured protagonists who either didn't mind or welcomed the change or the chance to dress. 

The one I did pick was The Punk Singer though which I did for Vancouverite on Rachel's Haven. It was a kind of 'She'll Become What She Hates' cap but in the end there are a lot of good things about the change so I like to think it ends on a positive. I think must also be my first F2F caption 

The Punk Singer (1) (2011)

The Punk Singer (2) (2011)

Saying and Not Saying

I do have a couple of posts planned over the next few days but I didn't expect to be siting down and writing anything tonight but something happened at work. It regarded someone who worked for a different company on the same floor as us and the way he was dressed (pink shorts and a t-shirt basically) and a colleague of mine mentioned, partially using another colleague as a random example, "Well he could wear a skirt and you couldn't say anything."

Sorry for the vagueness by the way but I'm sure you'll understand why. Anyway, this made me think about my own situation and how I've at times thought of asking if I can wear more feminine clothes in the office. I'm not really trans or at least I don't think so so there's not really much of an excuse. People still look at crossdressers as perverts in some respects but hopefully with the younger generation embracing gender fluidity there may be hope yet. A friend of mine who does dress a little different themselves works in an office where it isn't an issue but then I work in a much stricter profession. 

It's those words that stuck in my craw a bit though "you couldn't say anything" with the implication being that it would be wrong for a man to wear a skirt and the next sentence out would most likely be about 'woke liberal snowflakes' or other such culture war rubbish. Why should something need to be said though? Why can't it just be? The conclusion ended up being that as long it was appropriate office wear it would be within company rules and to be fair to the colleague who had the comment randomly directed at him did say he had no issue with anyone if that's what they wanted to do but just not him. In fact it reminded me a little of something I saw on a train once with a late middle aged couple commenting on one of the people sitting opposite me (I think anyway. I wasn't dressed femme but probably had my nails painted). Both were sitting on opposite seats and stretched a newspaper across them to whisper. It was like a scene from a sitcom, both hiding behind a big newspaper. I recall the man saying something like "probably get done for even asking."

So did I say anything? No. It was hard to know quite what to say especially without outing yourself plus these moments pass by so quickly they can be hard to process. I don't want to think ill of my colleague though as I do like them and they never struck me as that sort. I've also been painting my nails for a while now. I only used to on the weekends and then I became the sole occupant of the office during lockdown so I never stopped. Most people like it but now I wonder if it's just being tolerated because "you can't say anything". I might try and bring it up in a humourous way with them at some point and see how things go. I may be overthinking things and of course I've spoken before about how I'm conflicted about asking my superiors about dressing and how it's something I never even considered would ever come up in my lifetime. I never thought I would go outside fully dressed let alone to pubs with friends. 

People are stuck in their ways and sometimes they just need their eyes opening. I've had experiences like that. I'm not sure if I'm the person to do that though. In cases like this you're either the rabble rouser who wants to make things better for people like you or you just want to get on with your life and live it how you want to. I should be grateful at how many people are so accepting of me. I don't know if I'm the sort of person to change things but then visibility even in small ways is important. This year Ru Paul's Drag Race had its first heterosexual queen - Maddy Morphosis - and she was wonderful to see for someone like me but Maddy also spoke about not wanting to be a role model or trendsetter for cis guys in drag.  

I'm sure I'll think about it a lot in the next few days but things like this never truly affect me or if they do it's only for a little while. I may think I've reached the end of my tether but then I see the next outfit I really want to wear and I feel no shame about it. It's just the way I am. 

Check-Up #19

So what's been going on lately? 

Well quite a bit as it goes. I bought a new pair of jean shorts which I'm quite pleased with although they are advertised as 'mom shorts' which mostly annoys me because here in the UK it should be 'mum shorts' plus it makes me feel my age. I've not worn anything out recently unfortunately but hopefully I'm get some more chances over the summer months although they are never my favourite due to the amount of hair I have and the effort I have to put into it to shave it all. I have been thinking of maybe going for a waxing at some point though which may be expensive but could work. Might make me feel better anyway and less like a hairy lump. I still regularly see things I would love to buy though and recently there's a lovely matching pink jacket and skirt I've seen. If the store in question still had changing rooms I would have loved to try it on but they don't and for some reason they've never re-opened that part since it was closed during lockdown. The set does appeal to my Clueless sense of style though, or something Legally Blonde's Elle Woods might wear, and I don't know if I would ever wear it anywhere but it is tempting. I also hope to get in some cosplay at some point. I still want to buy new stuff but I hardly wear it anywhere and I don't know if I want to go to conventions on my own just to wear an outfit. 

Last month I talked about Twitter and I finally joined. Nothing much up yet apart from some comments on caps and a few tweets of posts from this blog but if you want to drop on by I'm at @TerriDesires. It will probably mainly links to this, maybe some news stuff to do with crossdressing and other bits I find interesting. I don't know if I will do any caps yet but I probably will do and it will be a challenge to keep to 140 characters. 

Finally 'what's in a name?' you may say. Well, this week the actor Dennis Waterman died and that name may not mean much to anyone outside the UK but growing up he was quite the small screen action star in programmes such as The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks. He was also sent up in the sketch show Little Britain as a diminutive actor who liked to 'write the theme tune, sing the theme tune' (all of which sounded like the Minder theme) on all his projects. Yes, that was based on a real person and yes he really did sing the theme to a number of his shows. He also had the good grace to join Matt Lucas and David Walliams on stage once to perform. 

George Cole (left) and Dennis Waterman (right)
in a 1979 publicity shot for Minder

Photo credit: IMDB

So what does this have to do with me? Well, Waterman played the role of Terry McCann an ex-con turned bodyguard to shady entrepreneur Arthur Daley in Minder which ran from 1979 to 1994 (although Waterman left a few series earlier) and I often thought I would like to have been called Terry (not my real male name though for any that thought I was just being lazy and switching the 'y' for an 'I') so when I joined Rachel's Haven and wanted to put in a female name I thought of Terri. I think mainly though the more femme way of spelling it is Teri but looking it up today I see that is in use as a female name and is a common way of shortening Teresa. It can also be used as a male name and means 'late summer' which I didn't know before. If ever I did go by a more femme name it probably wouldn't be Terri but incidentally if anyone can think up a more suitable name for me, please let me know as I would love to know what people think would suit me. 

The Capping Years: 2010

 Something I wanted to do back in 2020 was to take a cap from each of the 10 years I've been capping and present it here so I guess two years late is better than never. Coincidentally this month I celebrate 10 years of writing this blog so there's a thing. 

The first caption I wanted to put up is my entry for the Rachel's Haven September 2010 caption contest which had the theme of Lessons. The title refers to the innovative1955 film Blackboard Jungle which was the first to use a rock and roll soundtrack and featured a breakout role for the late Sidney Poitier. Not that I refer to any of that in the text though, it was just a suitable title for a school caption. 

The thing I noticed about looking back on some of my 2010 caps is how experimental they are. I'm putting the text in bubbles or in the back of the picture, using different fonts and even editing the photos. In fact in this I seem to have put some panties on the girl perhaps so it would match the text. I settled down to a much clearer uniform style in a couple of years but part of me is a little sad I don't seem to have that same drive anymore however part of a cap is being able to read the damn thing clearly and you couldn't always do that with these early ones of mine. The writing style itself I'm quite pleased with too - telling the whole thing through the lines that the naughty protagonist is being made to write as a punishment. It may be a bit rough around the edges but I still like this one. 

As the chalk font I used can be a little hard to read, the full text on the blackboard is: 

I must behave myself

I must not pull down Kelly's skirt and expose her panties to the class and laugh.

I must not wear strange jewellery given to me by Rachel.

I must answer to the name 'Staci'.

I must wear a short skirt to school.

I must flash my panties to everyone during school assembly. 

I must flash my panties and giggle at any cute guy I see today.

I have learnt my lesson. 

Blackboard Jungle (2010)