Me and my Tights - II

by Kaj

In the concluding part of Kaj's article, the writer tells of his earliest childhood experience involving tights, and how it changed his life! I have always said that school plays have a lot to answer for!

It all began when my family moved from Helsinki to the little town of Salo. Two years later I started primary school. I was a lively lad, but sensitive, a proper "Mummy's little darling". That year something happened that changed my life, if not totally then at least irrevocably in certain respects. Our form's contribution to the school's Christmas party was the play "Topsu the Gnome's New Trousers". For some reason or other, I was chosen for the main role, the little gnome who lost his trousers but, after a number of adventures, got a new pair. The end was thus a happy one. The unhappy bit, however, was the teacher's choice of costume. Under the trousers there was naturally a pair of tights because that was how it was in all the pictures of gnomes throughout the world. There was no point in arguing, as the teacher was quite adamant and, like an old time matriarch, totally failed to appreciate the psyche of a little boy searching for his sexual identity. I was horrified. That same fateful afternoon I walked from the little red school across the square to our home in the near distance. The pale December sun shone on my face as I cried copiously at my fate.

The next day my mother bought from the shop that utterly trivial, but to me quite horrifying female garment. Tights! When, however, I absentmindedly tried these cotton ribbed horrors on, I experienced something quite indescribable. Along with a powerful feeling of shame came a blessed illumination. I'd overcome some limit, some unseen obstacle in myself, and had somehow changed. Appearing in this frippery in front of my friends and acquaintances was extremely humiliating. I don't know how I managed it and I've no recollection whatsoever of the actual performance. But I do remember that after the event, I became fascinated with the TV adventures of Batman, strongly identifying myself with his young assistant, Robin the Boy Wonder prancing around in his tights. In my daydreams, Tricot-Robin suffered and enjoyed being tortured by the sadistic Cat Woman.

Some years passed and I became an adolescent. It was then that I dared buy my first pair of crepe tights. In these and gradually many others I've dressed up in my private secrecy, but also as part of my sexual self-education. Over the years I imagined I was alone with my nylon stigma. Transvestites have a somewhat similar custom, but I never had any great need to be a "girl" as I felt myself to be a fully-fledged man. It was not until I got to know my present wife that the situation was resolved. I was able to tell her everything from the very beginning and she accepted me, ladders and all. In time I realised that I was by no means unique. Nowadays tights, albeit hidden from the sight of others, are an essential part of my dress. In them I'm at peace with myself.

I've enthusiastically continued my thespian interests. But after the above purgatory experienced as a seven-year-old, first nights are kid's stuff.

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