Dressing Up

Peter Ackroyd

Dressing Up explores the fascinating and complex phenomena of Transvestism (cross dressing by heterosexuals who admire and identify with the opposite sex) and Drag (cross dressing by male homosexuals who adorn themselves in the highly exaggerated dress and makeup of the vamp in an expression of parody and misogyny). It is an examination of the profound psychological significance underlying most cross dressing: as erotic experience; as the expression of longing for identification with women while maintaining one's maleness; and as fetishistic impulse. —book jacket