Psychoeducation and Identification of our Fetish

So I work in the field of psychology and just thought it would be fun talk a little about the intersection of fetish, crossdressing, and psychology. 

I'm trying to think about how a psychologist or psychiatrist would look at someone where masking was discovered. Like... a couple going to marriage counseling for issues and the masker's partner brings up masking as something negative. Or... a family doing family counseling and a child discovered a female mask. Or maybe someone experiencing some mental health issues and in the process of talking to their therapist disclosing about wearing female masks.

I think it would be pretty easy for a clinician to pull at that thread and focus on masking, perhaps out of personal interest (curiosity) or thinking that they're unraveling something very telling about the individual through their masking behaviors.
(so you wear female clothes and women's masks... how was your relationship with your mother?)

Perhaps this masking is some mix of gender dysphoria, transvestism, and fetishism, or at least to the untrained physician could be considered something that falls in the paraphilic behaviors category in the DSM-V (it's worth noting that pedophilia is included in this category).
I think it would be easy for a clinician to identify this behavior and basically turn it into a sickness, since it is so abnormal. (and psychology, if nothing else, is designed to understand what is 'normal' and help people who fall outside of that category get more in line with being 'normal' because normal = 'healthy.') 

Transvestic disorder - (an existing diagnosis) - involving the subject having recurrent thoughts and compulsions to dress as the opposite sex for sexual gratification. This is NOT considered a disorder unless it causes the individual distress and impairment in social, financial or personal functioning.

Fetishistic disorder - (an existing diagnosis) - individual has recurrent, intense sexual arousal from an inanimate object, body-part (not genitalia), role playing, focus on certain physical characteristics, or non-intercourse related acts that causes distress and functional impairment.

So if anyone here encounters the mental health system and this comes up, know that masking is ONLY A PROBLEM IF YOU THINK IT IS A PROBLEM and/or if it has caused some decreased functioning that is worrisome for you. In this day and age of gender neutral bathrooms and equal rights for transgendered people, we should all know that we cannot be discriminated against legally (meaning loss of job, loss of promotion, refused housing, etc.) for our fetish. I mean, we can absolutely be discriminated against socially, but not legally.

On a side note.. I've spent way too much money on gear lately, but that's a whole other story.

But I keep seeing maskers on social media sending out apologies for their lack of content or absences from being visible online. To them I want to say, DON'T APOLOGIZE! You should only be masking if/when you want to. With social media I think that people are getting caught up in the 'likes' culture and wanting to keep producing and producing (I'm certainly in the hamster wheel sometimes), but I think it's also important to stop and take a step back and evaluate why you're masking every time you mask. If you're thinking, I want likes or people are expecting me to or I'm feeling down and this may cheer me up or I don't have anyone in my life and this helps me not feel alone, then I'm telling you, you're doing it wrong. If you're masking for those reasons, I'd strongly encourage you to do something else that's more productive towards your feelings with that time. For example, if you wish you had a wife or girlfriend and your solution is to mask, but after masking that feeling comes back at just the same intensity, then perhaps that time would've been better spent on a dating site (or fetlife), involving yourself in group activities (to meet people and just be socially active), or sprucing yourself up so you can find a mate.

I think that masking is a beautiful and wonderful thing full of excitement, unique sensations and insights, and helps us express a side of ourselves that we don't feel comfortable expressing in our everyday lives. It is a GOOD THING, as long as you treat it like a good thing. So be mindful when you mask and while masking focus on everything that you enjoy about it, because some of us (this was me a few years ago) fall into the bad habit of doing it for lack of other activities, playmates, partners, or due to social (online) pressures to.

I think it's perhaps also useful to understand what type of masker you are, since I've encountered a few budding young maskers who through masking realized that they were actually transgendered and masking was merely a stepping stone to that discovery (which is great!).

So far I've only thought of a few classifications for maskers:
Female masker - fetish type
Female masker - trasnvestic type
Female masker - disguise type
Female masker - mixed type

with modifiers like:
- with preference for latex, satin, lace
- exhibitionist type
- isolating type
- play type

So to classify myself: Female Masker - fetish type - preference for latex, isolating type.

I'd love for people to add to this list I've started. I also want to point out that I'm doing this partially as a fun exercise and partially because I think that we need to start developing language around our fetish. I think language development is important because until there are generally known words to describe us, we are largely unknown and subject to greater criticism, incorrect hypothesis about our intentions in masking, and open to having more stereotypes and negative attributions made about us as individuals, while having language helps establish us as a group. Safety in numbers!