Crossdream Life forum, at which I have been a frequent contributor, seems to be dying a very slow death.
There is reluctance to write about such declines, as acknowledgement of decline is likely to confirm and exacerbate it (note that I am not actually posting this on Crossdream Life). But it is right to acknowledge something of importance that is actually occurring. I don't think not acknowledging it will prevent further decline. Whenever a new member arrives one wants to support their initial enthusiasm, hoping that this new person might yet help to turn things around. But sooner or later (increasingly, usually sooner) they stop coming.
Before I go further, I should wholeheartedly thank CDL's founders, Jason and Jack, the friends I've made at CDL, and all who have contributed positively to the forum. There have been many good threads, many thoughtful and stimulating contributions, and the forum certainly has been a positive element in my life.
Crossdream Life has attracted 762 members. The hope of such forums is, surely, that now kindred spirits have such a base, they can support each other and create something positive for themselves. While CDL may have performed a positive temporary role in individuals' trans journeys, in the long run I would say that a new community/culture was not created.
Why not? To me the failure seems apiece with the tendencies in human endeavor in general. Complexities in the nature of life and in human nature undermine good intentions. Revolutions go wrong, marriages break down etc.; things that are successful for a while decline or get corrupted. We see this in the early stages of the extraordinary new development in human culture - the internet. The exciting new world so full of potential soon becomes beset with problems.
In online culture there's a particularly strong sense of what isn't being said. How are people feeling when they're not contributing to the forum, when they're not writing their blog?
With trans, for many of us, there's an extra particular element of 'sometimes you're really into it, sometimes you're just not', making what is expressed only a part of an individual's picture.
Between us, the Crossdream Life members have failed to create a community which make us feel thoroughly good about being crossdreamers: a community that reassures as well as stimulates. Something which counters the inclination to withdraw.
Certainly the internet provides lots of opportunities for online socialising. Most of these seem a little intimidating, though, and just not the kind of thing that a lot of us enjoy. Like going into a nightclub where you don't know anybody. And of course there are also sites that provide opportunities for up-front online sexual liaison. But with these even more so, for many people such kind of set-up is not appealing.
For me it was important that Crossdream Life was not the kind of site people visit when they are drunk and then disown the part of themselves that went there the next day. Crossdreaming is sexual trans, but there are all sorts of contexts for sexuality, not all dark and sleazy. Sadly, some crossdreamers have regarded crossdreaming as being indelibly associated with addictive, unnourishing online sex and porn.
Factors that deflected Crossdream Life from going in the direction I would have liked were:
1. People wanting to 'cure' themselves of crossdreaming.
2. Focus on transitioning.
3. 'My dysphoria is a horrible affliction. How insensitive of you to try to be positive and enjoy your crossdreaming.'
4. Endless debates about the causes of crossdreaming.
Of course changes in online culture have played a part. Facebook took a lot from online forums, and now there is tumblr, etc. This I find wearying. If I have to keep following the fashions, becoming au fait with the latest all the time, I'm more inclined to think I'll save myself the bother by leaving all well alone.
I remember that in a thread on Crossdream Life a couple of years ago I extolled the joys of crossdreaming and regretted a general feeling of despondency on the forum. A member called dkool replied that many crossdreamers feel negatively because they don't know where to take their crossdreaming. Increasingly I have come to appreciate what dkool meant.
I joined Crossdream Life only a few weeks ago, and after an initial burst of posts, I find myself with not a lot new to say there. I also tried joining a different forum, but eventually deleted my account there because it was so hard to use, and it was likewise not very active.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping to find a place where I could figure out and express my authentic self and find a supportive group of like-minded folks. Crossdream Life is a place where that can happen, but also I feel like a forum isn't quite the right channel for what I want to do online.
For me, the Crossdream Life forum helped because it showed me that I am not the only one who crossdreams. But on the downside, I also learned that I'm at a different place in my journey than a lot of other people. And that despite all the kind words and advice, I've still got a lot of work to do on my own in order to find peace of mind.
I feel like my blog works better for that. Though I can't articulate why that is.
This week I'm looking at migrating my blog to something more ambitious. Maybe some sort of combination of my Blogspot and Tumblr. While I'll miss some of the potential for discussions, I think having a personal site where I can let my girl-side run free feels more like what I need right now.
Thanks a lot, Cassandra. This is informative, as I suspect many posters have felt similarly to you.
DeleteMany have expressed the importance of discovering CDL, for the same reasons as you. Many have also felt a hope for positive, supportive community that follows, yet seen that hope unfulfilled.
Your comments suggest some issues:
1) Once people have joined and declared a little of themselves, they are not sure what to do next, to move further into the community.
2) Too much discussion of transitioning and hormone treatment can be off-putting for those don't wish to go near anything like that.
3) People writing about how awful they feel can make crossdreamers feel that this would be a miserable community to join, that if crossdreaming leads to misery then they try hard to stop.
4) There just isn't much activity these days, so one soon gets frustrated if one logs in frequently, expecting to read interesting new posts.
It's a shame that you feel you need to do a lot of psychological 'work' 'on your own'. I am glad that you are doing a blog and tumblr. However I find that publishing a blog comes much from a desire to connect, that isn't greatly met by bloggers etc. all posting on their own private sites. Keep in touch about new developments in your blogging etc. though. xx
The work 'on my own' is on accepting myself for whoever I am. Nobody can do that for me, and it's just going to take some time to undo a lifetime of habits and assumptions. And I have a therapist helping me, so I'm not truly alone, thank goodness.
DeleteI updated my blog's look and migrated it to a custom domain. Now I feel like I have everything in place and can work on some posts. I feel like it's a place where I can just write about me without feeling narcissistic. Whereas I feel should write about broader topics on CDL.
This is a very important discussion. I know that you posted your comment here for a reason, Deborah, but I strongly believe this is too important for us not to involve the community. I have therefore linked to this post over at CDL.
ReplyDeleteThat's okay, Jack. As I declare, I have mixed feelings about publishing pessimistic analysis. But you are entitled to take responsibility for linking to it, on the site you yourself set up. xx
DeleteI think we have talked before about the format of CL and what people use it for.
ReplyDeleteI discovered CL shortly after I discovered the term "autogynephilia". I was extremely excited to find a space devoted to the fascinating phenomenon, where it can be discussed. Whilst I do enjoy goofing around and the odd light hearted interaction regarding & alluding to actual content or activity which I can get off to, what I seek and truly enjoy in such a place is purely intellectual. Which is to say that CL satisfies neither as a resource to get off, nor as a space where open and constructive discourse can take place, free from Jack's ideological constraints & policing.
http://www.crossdreamlife.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1657&start=10#p12806
Is this apart of the platform you seek? Is there a place for open discourse? I get the feeling that you now prefer to align yourself with dogmatic transsexual-reductionists who manipulate "trolling" on part of those who propose that transness is not etiologically intrinsic. Or allegiance to those who manipulatively avoid to acknowledge or make clear what they consider to be the conditions for authentic self identification as a "gender", so they can suppress discourse under the accusation of invalidating the identity of trans people?
Debs you are an interesting character, in that on one side you appear interested in understanding with genuine integrity, and then on the other hand in utter contradiction, you appear overwhelmingly consumed by a love for the object of desire.
"Crossdreaming is sexual trans"
Which is as misleading as representing the fetish as "crossdressing". When I hear you state something like this, I see it not as a part of Debs which is truly interesting in understanding.
Hi wxh,
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call you a troll, but undoubtedly you upset people and create an abrasive atmosphere, much more through your style of address than the content of your arguments. Compare yourself in this respect with Thirdwaytrans.
Of course I believe in open discourse, and do not want to prohibit non-essentialist beliefs.
'Crossdreaming is sexual trans': by this I mean that the term is best used to describe all sexual stimulation by trans content. It is not an interpretation of the psychological cause of the stimulation. xxx
I think that I have said what has really needed to have be said, or rather have played a key discursive part in the "community". That ThirdWayTrans is coming from the same perspective as I, yet when dealing with Molay, for whom his game is continuously perpetuating ideologically driven nonsense, there is a real problem when it comes to his lack of intellectual integrity. Do you appreciate the need to call bullshit in the face of hypocrisy? Just as Molay sees the need to react against AGP to affirm his supposed innate transness, whilst overtly compartmentalizing & suppressing fetishism & fetishists from the discourse, do you recognise the need for a presence in the community which effectively calls to cut the bullshit?
Delete"Crossdreaming is sexual trans"
Trans content? That is itself an abstraction, which fails to represent much of the content. "Feminization fetish" is much closer if we want to avoid proliferating misleading euphemisms, but it is itself still technically way off. It is still an abstraction. "Masochistic emasculation fetish" may not be sexy and may not fit individual's politics, but it is simple and represents the underlying dynamics of the fetish more than anything else.
Jack's response on the site (see link above) initiated a long thread in which many members expressed opinions about CDL. In fact the thread has produced a small revival of CDL, with more activity generally than there has been for a while. Activity levels on the site have, since the start, been rather erratic, so it is possible that my prognosis of 'a very slow death' was wrong. We shall see. Certainly, though, if you are a crossdreamer, I do recommend that you at least take a look at the site.
ReplyDeleteThe tone of my original post is one of rueful reflection, but it has been interpreted as a call for urgent action to change the site. Unsurprisingly, my noting that the site hasn't developed the kind of a community I would have liked (which I don't think I ever really expected it to) has been conflated with my concern at the current low level of activity. I was not suggesting that a change of site policy could greatly improve matters. Unless one or two posters become too dominant, a forum is pleasingly democratic - the posters shape the character of the site. The more each poster inputs into the site, the more influence they have. That is good.
What I would like is a site that affirms crossdreaming per se, that does not regard it as weak alternative to either transitioning or focusing on real life masculinity. Yet clearly many other posters do not share my opinion, and I do not want what I would like to be imposed undemocratically. Rather I think common attitudes indicate a collective low self-esteem, a low opinion of crossdreaming that is internalised by many crossdreamers. I regret that this is the case, but I respect that this is the case.
A lot of posters have suggested changes to the site. Generally (i.e. everywhere) not a lot results from free-for-all lets-hear-your-ideas sessions, and I suspect that most of the ideas for CDL won't progress beyond the initial suggestion. I doubt many will be acted upon, and I doubt that any of them would actually make much difference. The problems are broader than any internal weakness of the site.
But let others debate the future of Crossdream Life, let others debate crossdreaming identity, crossdreaming community, the causes of crossdreaming, the rights and wrongs of Blanchard etc., etc. After 680 posts at CDL, I am exhausted. xx
For people to affirm and enjoy their fetish, much of it has to do with understanding it as such.
DeleteTake for example the intro from http://www.sixpacksite.com/
"So you get a little turned on when you think about switching genders? So what!? Everybody's got some sort of freakishly bizarre thrill they never talk about. That's no reason to get all weirded out over this stuff.
Have a little bit of fun. Enjoy yourself. Do whatever you need to do and then get on with your life. Who the heck cares.
Here you'll find some dumb little stories and pictures that hopefully will amuse you and fill that odd unspoken need. Either that, or you're going to be offended or totally bent out of shape over this sort of thing. So don't go sending me e-mail about sick I am, because I'm already well aware of that, thank you very much."
This isn't affirmative, this is dismissive and defensive. He even describes himself as 'sick'. xx
DeleteI see it as playful. The guy knows he has a fetish and simply enjoys it.
Delete"In online culture there's a particularly strong sense of what isn't being said. How are people feeling when they're not contributing to the forum, when they're not writing their blog?"
ReplyDeleteThat’s a really good point, Debs. I might even try to address that in my own blog. How do I feel in the downtime? There are peaks and troughs to my crossdreaming. The peaks are thrilling enough to inspire me to write, but can I describe the troughs? The troughs are probably where the writing gets done (compare Wordsworth’s description of poetry as “emotion recollected in tranquillity”.)
I agree that there’s perhaps too much theorising on CDL (“endless debates about causes”, as you put it) – I’m as guilty of that as anyone. Trouble is – I really want to understand. I want to know what this phenomenon is, what causes it, whether I’ve created it or am exacerbating it, whether it was laid down in the womb… And here I confront a striking personality difference between my male and female selves: the male is the type who obsesses about finding explanations; the female is more intuitive, grounded, in the moment. So learning to celebrate crossdreaming and stop rationalising it is also about giving in to my female self, with all the pleasure (or danger) that might entail. I’m not sure my femme self would spend much time on CDL: she’d be out partying, like April Lee!
Thanks, Dabrela. Good comments!
ReplyDeleteRespecting one's transness involves trusting feelings in the face of common sense. Fear plays a big part, and it is into this mix that intellectual doubt is thrown.If you are committed enough to a trans self-interpretation to write about it, rather than not wanting anything to do with it, during the troughs, you have strong commitment.
Whereas the crossdreaming Reddit site is racked with acrimonious debate, in CDL debate is rather friendly, and is mostly effectively separated on to the 'What is crossdreaming?' board. Unlike discussion of transitioning, I doubt it puts people off CDL. But I think it can be a way of deflecting an intention to be trans into a discussion of trans that is, I agree, rather masculine in character. It is important and interesting to try to comprehend our crossdreaming, but what I'd most like is a place to actually be trans online, in friendly safe company. xx
I think sissy social would be the site for you
DeleteMaybe xxx
Delete