I love to dress up in stockings with my wife - does that make me a crossdresser?

Abbie

I’m a man who enjoys wearing stockings and suspenders in the bedroom with my wife. It’s something we both find exciting and it turns us both on.

But I’ve started wondering — does this make me a cross-dresser?

What you’re really asking isn’t about stockings.

It’s about what something means once you start naming it.

Cross-dressing usually refers to wearing clothes culturally associated with another gender. But that definition is broad, and it doesn’t automatically explain why someone wears what they wear — or what it means to them.

In your case, stockings and suspenders aren’t about identity.

They’re about connection.

You and your wife are using clothing as part of your shared intimacy. It’s something that belongs to the space between you — not something you’re taking into the outside world, not something you’ve said defines who you are.

That matters.

Some people wear certain clothes because they feel like themselves in them.

Some wear them because they enjoy how it changes a moment.

Some because it creates excitement, play, or intimacy with someone they trust.

Those are different things.

So does it make you a cross-dresser?

It might, if that’s how you understand what you’re doing.

It might not, if this is simply one way you and your wife create closeness.

What matters more than the label is this:

Does it feel right to you?

Does it feel honest?

Does it bring you closer to each other, not further from yourselves?

From what you’ve said, it does.

Clothes don’t define your masculinity, your orientation, or your worth.

They’re tools. Symbols. Sometimes just textures and shapes that help people feel something together.

If this is something you and your wife choose — not hide from each other, not feel ashamed of — then it doesn’t need fixing or explaining away.

It just needs respecting.

You’re not broken.

You’re not doing something wrong.

You’re doing something that works for the two of you.

And that’s usually the only test that matters.

This is one story about stockings. If they keep coming up for you — as desire, identity, curiosity, or connection — this page brings those stories together:

→ Stockings Mean More Than Fabric