Expert analysis: Of straight men who enjoy dressing up as women
For one reason or another, there are men who are strictly heterosexual- exclusively attracted to people of the opposite sex- but still chose to go down the path of dressing up as women.
They wear wigs, women’s fashion including jewelry, bags and shoes, don makeup, perfume and manicured nails; and tend to exhibit mannerisms associated with women such as how they speak, walk and hand gestures when expressing themselves.
In Kenya, there are a number of men who do this. But when asked if they are members of the queer community that comprises the lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, queer plus; they are often vague about their answers- often giving one answer today and a different answer tomorrow- including dressing up for social media content creation or to land brand gigs due to their ‘unique niche’ that not many are doing.
But, if they are not members of the queer community, what draws straight men into dressing up and behaving like women? Speaking to Nairobi News, Dr Venus Kyengo, a Counselling Psychologist with The Myndspa, said one of the reasons for this occurrence could be satisfying a fetish.
“It might just be the fetishes that people have because it gives them some level of- can I use a simple word like motivation. Dressing up this way makes them feel good about themselves. However, when we talk about something like a Johari Window, there is what you know about yourself but there is also what people see and know about you,” began Dr Kyengo.
A Johari Window is a framework in which a person can use to develop better self awareness of their conscious and unconscious biases. According to Mind Tools, one can use it to compare what they consider to be their strengths and weaknesses to to other people’s perceptions of them. This Window is split in four quadrants: the open area where one knows things about themselves, the blind area where there are things they don’t know about themselves but others do and the hidden area where there are things a person knows about themselves but keep hidden.
The final quadrant is the unknown area where there are things unknown to both a person and those around them.
Dr Kyengo went on, “Sometimes, in as much as you are dressing up and thinking this is so innocent, what you’d get back as feedback may not really be what you expect. The reason why some men will have this feminine things is just a desire to. It is an underlying desire and they feel more comfortable in such dressing.
But again, I do not want to shy away from saying that it is a dysfunction because even if they know that dressing up as a woman there would be so many things said about them and they would have perceptions about them and they still do it anyway, then it means their desire is above what other people out there will say. This means it is very dangerous in terms of dealing with facts and fiction. The fact is there is a dysfunctionality in them and they do not care.
Today I just can’t dress up like a man and walk around and not expect some feedback, and when I get feedback, I should be able to adjust my ways based on the fact that this makes me look like a man. The question becomes, ‘do I want to be looked at as a man?’ When the feedback is there, then one should alter the way they do things.”
She went on to recognize that there are some men who, despite receiving such feedback, still forge ahead and exhibit feminine tendencies because their desires are greater than societal expectations. Such men (and women) form the transgender group in the queer community- those who identify with genders different from the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender people may undergo medical treatments such as hormone therapy or surgery to align their bodies with their gender identity, but not all do. They resort to leading lifestyles similar to the opposite gender.
How, then, can heterosexual men who enjoy dressing and acting like women cope in a society where they elicit confusion with their desire? Studies have shown that men in such instances are often encouraged to seek support from family members and friends, find spaces where they will feel safe and accepted; and to seek therapy to explore their feelings and experiences with cross dressing.