Abstract:
This paper discusses data collected on research with women that identifies themselves as “wives” or “SO’s” of men who “practice cross-dressing”. It is also an outgrowth of my doctoral thesis on how men who identify as crossdressers negotiate this practice in their everyday lives. The research part of an ethnography and is complemented by semi-structured interviews with these women. We seek to understand how these women deal with tensions relating to gender and sexuality conventions and the managing of the secret to living with this practice. It also discusses how crossdressing impacts privacy and affective-sexual/conjugal of people who dresses up as the opposite sex, especially in those cases where the wishes and practices relating to crossdressing of the spouse were revealed after several years of marriage.
Key words:
conjugality; care; gender; sexuality; cross-dressing