transretrogurl

So, the lockdown was tough. Yeah, I know it could have been much, much worse, but it was very much mentally difficult for me for a number of reasons. And the reason that caused the most problems? I had way too much time to *think*.

It sounds odd but my job has me, or rather had me, travelling a lot to various places in the UK. My day was normally seven to eight hours of travel combined with very much having to think on my feet. Come the lockdown I found myself working from home and suddenly had a lot more time to just think.

I went through the usual trans-silliness. Will I ever get to dress again? Do I really want to dress again? Do I actually want to be a woman (and given way too much time to think about it I decided yes, then no, then yes, then no. I came a hairs-breadth away from trying to book a session at a gender clinic, knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to because of the crisis but feeling I needed to do *something*).

As I said, way too much time. It’s not a good thing, especially when you have an unconstrained imagination and a not so much wavering but flailing femm-libido.

However, one of the things I got obsessed about in those dark months was the idea of the TradWife.

So stick with me on this, as, if you’re aware, the term TradWife has been corrupted and hijacked by the far right in the US to mean something completely different to what it actually means, but amusingly that just makes it more fun. No spoilers about what comes next, but I really wanted to get some tagged pictures of me as a submissive traditional God-fearing housewife in front of some radical right-wingers. If just for the irony, although knowing the characters of a lot of these people they would bluster and rave in public while covertly sending me dick pics and hotel room numbers. Ah, the world today, what a gloriously decadent place.

Anyway, I digress. The concept of a TradWife is delightfully sexist when looked at from a woman’s perspective, but from a certain kind of T-Girl with a certain kind of fetish it is utterly adorably kinky.

A TradWife is a woman who gives up her freedoms and effectively her rights to fulfil the role of what men used to see as the wife; stay at home, focus on the house and the children, always immaculately dressed and made-up. Some TradWifes go even further, not having a bank account but being given money to buy clothes and feed the family by the breadwinner, the husband.

There’s something about that concept, not from a mysogynistic perspective but from an emasculation perspective that just gives me that dark thrill. If you don’t have a fetish you won’t know what I mean, but if you do…..you know exactly what I mean.

I tried to describe it to my therapist without sinking into the ‘it makes me internally horny’ cul-de-sac that it inevitably drags you down into. It’s like a ball of dark warmth just behind your solar-plexus. It’s like happiness distilled and mixed with a little bit of shame, of attraction wrapped in a warm wet coat. There’s nothing like the thrill of a fetish, and the body loves it.

So, stuck in lockdown, I thought a lot about what it would be like to be a TradWife, and as soon as the government allowed me I popped off to the wonderful Cindy at Boys Will Be Girls with some outfits and ideas.

And out of that came two distinct women, which explains (I’m truly sorry) the puntastic title of the blog.

We created two different TradWife looks. The meek TradWife who isn;t completely sure she wants to submit but her husband is a bit bossy. And the American right-wing TradWife, all false smiles and immaculate makeup, a prop for her husband’s political or theosophical career goals, a soulless smile behind layers of makeup and perfume.

Yeah, I had fun with these two completely different TradWives.

TradWife Number 1 – ‘Diane’

So, Diane is one of those meek TradWifes. She really doesn’t believe in the concept but her husband is somewhat of a bully, so she conforms to his idea of what a traditional wife should be.

She gets up earlier than her husband, applies her makeup, chooses one of the many ‘housewife’ dresses her husband has stocked her wardrobe with, then makes sure the breakfast is made for everyone before quietly waking her husband with a kiss.

I had a lot of fun with this one, partly because we had a chance to put her in a kitchen, the ultimate traditional place for a wife to be. The dress was from HellBunny and a lot of fun to wear; quite a thin fabric that felt like satin. Combined with sensible shoes and a new wig I’d bought specifically, an above shoulder length bob hairstyle favoured by women who want to look feminine without the mounds of long hair getting in the food or clothes as she washes them.

Occasionally I’ve been accused of a touch of sexism but is it really sexism when the downtrodden, submissive woman fulfilling the classic role of the wife as prescribed by men is, well, a man? Nah, call it self-abuse.

TradWife Number 2 – ‘Debbie’

Oh, I had fun with this one. The dress is actually from a website for the ‘older lady’, but when I saw the 1940s styling and padded shoulders I immediately thought of those American TV Evangelist’s wives, the ones with too much makeup and tears on tap.

A confession, if you’ll pardon the pun. I am as far from religious as you can be, always have been. But when I was planning this woman I knew from the start she’d be one of those right wing evangelicals from the bible belt. So she is wearing a cross. I did feel a little guilty when I put it on, and then I remembered that I’m also a: not a woman and b: not married to a man, so one more little subterfuge wouldn’t hurt. Plus it really highlighted the woman I was trying to create – a conservative wife ready to be on the arm of her husband whenever he needed it.

As I said, a lot of fun with this. All that was missing was a grey haired older gentleman dressed in an expensive suit that she could hold hands with, but at that point we’d be going down a different road entirely. Not that I haven’t considered it; again, way too much time thinking during the lockdown.

And that look/dress was one of *those* outfits I’ve talked before. I tend to feel a little uncomfortable when all the buttons are done up, when the zip is pulled. Deep down inside I still think it’s wrong to be doing this even though I know it isn’t. But this outfit was one of those that after five minutes or so something clicked in my head and I felt, well, ‘me’.

Which is wonderfully ironic. I was trying to create the stereotypical stuck-up rich wife for an intolerant right wing man, and somehow that look felt normal. Go figure.

Being honest, it ticked my fetish boxes pretty perfectly and was a wonderful outlet after going on eight months of no Sarah. But it was secretly nice to slip back into jeans, t-shirt and a sense of male entitlement. Or at least that’s what I told myself as I reluctantly took off my dress…..

Stay beautiful and remember that if a fetish makes you feel good and it hurts no-one else, it’s a wonderful thing to play with.