(This bio has been up for quite a few years now and I keep thinking I need to change it or take it down and put something new up. In the meantime, here's a little bit - well, actually probably too much - about me.)
Hi there…My name's Sandra Gibbons and welcome to my crossdressing and bondage website. I’ve been interested in dressing like a girl and being tied up since I was a small child. I’ve often wondered where these desires came from but have never really come to a completely satisfying answer. I remember being fascinated by the clothes in my mother’s closet and by all the delicate things on her make-up table. I vividly remember the smell of her perfume and the feel of her clothes. But I was a shy and timid child and quickly learned that I should keep my interest in girlie things hidden. So I never dressed up as a child even though I wanted to very much. Fear held me back and it wasn’t till many years later that I finally began to loosen the hold that fear had on me.
I grew up in Colorado, in a medium-sized town called Colorado Springs, which is very conservative and is the home to several military bases. My upbringing was pretty dull and normal from the outside. We were just another middle-class family living in the suburbs. Like so many families we weren’t particularly demonstrative when it came to showing affection or talking about how we felt. I was quiet and liked to draw pictures and daydream a lot, and I spent a lot of time by myself.
One of my earliest memories about dressing up was at the home of some people my parents knew who had a Sunday church meeting in their home. The family that lived in the house had several daughters who had racks and racks of clothes stored in their basement. I remember a bunch of us kids playing down there and a few of the boys started clowning around with the girl’s clothes and actually dressing up in them. I was amazed that they had the nerve to do such a thing. I was probably about eight years old and they were maybe a few years older than me. I wanted to join in the play so much, but didn’t dare because I thought everyone would be able to tell how much I enjoyed it, that they would know that it was more than just play for me, that I was really really into it! I sometimes still regret that moment from childhood and wonder what would have happened if I’d been brave enough to join in the play – maybe I would have learned that my fears were groundless, but of course there’s no way to know. For a long time I felt that this moment was a turning point for me, when I made the conscious decision to stay in the closet and began living with shame and embarrassment for the way I was. Later I wondered if the older boys who’d been dressing up went on to be crossdressers themselves, if maybe they were just like me, only braver. Or were they just fooling around and the clothes meant nothing special to them? Who knows?
Anyway, deep inside I knew I was a boy and never would be a “real” girl but the desires seem to have always been there. I never had the feeling of being born the wrong sex or being trapped in the wrong body. I was basically just a boy who was wildly attracted to girl’s clothes and who daydreamed about living my life as a girl. I quickly learned that this wasn’t the way that most “normal” boys felt and that I had better keep this aspect of myself well hidden. I must have learned this lesson very well because later when I did start to secretly dress in my mother’s clothes I was always able to cover my tracks and was never caught or found out.
Another memory that I’ve talked about elsewhere is watching detective movies where women ended up being bound and gagged. Those scenes absolutely thrilled me and practically sent me into a trance. I would try to act calm so that no one else in the room would know that I was so affected by these scenes. I was always afraid that my parents or older brother could read my mind and see the fascination written all over my face. These helpless damsels would be struggling and “mmmpphhing”on the TV screen and I’d be trembling inside, wanting so much to be in the same predicament.
Alone at night I would lie in bed and daydream that I was a pretty office girl who gets grabbed and held in some dangerous man’s basement to be used as his unwilling and helpless “girlfriend.” Or else I’d imagine that I was kept as a plaything by a married couple who kept me locked away in the basement. Or I was the victim of a home robbery where I would awake to find someone standing over me with ropes and duct tape. The fact that so many of these fantasies had me being tied up by a guy started to worry me. Usually in the damsel in distress scenes on TV it was a guy who did the tying, and so I think those are the same lines that my fantasies followed. But for a long time I felt uncomfortable about this. I would think, “Why do I keep fantasize about being tied up by guys? Does this mean I’m gay?” And what’s worse is that usually in my fantasies the guys weren’t necessarily cruel. In fact they might be almost sorry that they had to do what they were doing. But they would make it clear to me that I was going to be their captive and that I had absolutely no say in the matter. I would try to force myself not to have these fantasies but of course that just made them seem more forbidden and gave them even more of a charge.
One of my stranger fantasies involved mummification. I think when I was 8 or 9 years old I must have gone to a sporting goods shop with my family and saw a sleeping bag described as a “mummy bag.” In my mind I imagined how it could be used to restrain someone, and I couldn’t figure out how you could ever get out of it once you were zipped inside. It must have made a deep impression on me because eventually I would find myself fantasizing about being dressed and tied up and then slipped into a tight nylon sleepsack that zipped up the front all the way to my neck and my face was then covered with a hood. I don’t know if the sleeping bag actually led to this fantasy but I have no other idea where such a thought would come from for a nine-year-old boy. All I knew was that it seemed forbidden and dangerous and terribly exciting.
Years later when I was living alone I once got myself into a scary situation while trying to do some self-mummification. I got a large plastic shower curtain, spread it out on the floor and put strips of double stick tape on it. Then I got dressed in pantyhose, a bra and panty girdle, tape-gagged myself, bound my knees and ankles and used a short belt with some extra holes poked into it to bind my wrists. I lay down on one end of the shower curtain and slowly began to wrap myself up. As I rolled over and over the double-stick tape held really well and I found myself wrapped up from my toes to my neck. The belt around my wrists was tight and I just lay there for a while enjoying the closed-in sensation. After a while I started to squirm a little and realized that the tape was really secure. I began to think that I might not be able to get free and panic suddenly hit me. I started thrashing around desperately, instantly regretting that I’d done such a stupid thing. I kept trying to tell myself to relax and take deep breaths but then the panic would seize me again and I’d start thrashing about once more. Finally I focused on my wrists and slowly started working on getting free from the belt. After a long time lying there I was finally able to work one hand free from the belt and then slowly work my way out of the plastic sheath. By the time I was free, I was panting, sore, and drenched in sweat and I kept telling myself that I would never do this sort of thing again. Never! Of course my resolve didn’t last very long.
Growing up I was terribly afraid of girls even though I wanted to dress like them so much. Another regret, which also took place at a church, involved a couple girls a few years older than me who invited me to come over to their house for the afternoon to play. There was no talk of dressing up or anything like that, but I was really attracted to them (and to their clothes) and the thought of being alone with them scared me to death. So I mumbled something about not being able to go and kicked myself later for being such a coward. Years later I still wished I’d gone and had tried to make more progress with the opposite sex but my fears again held me back. (Update - as I allude to below, I've dealt with depression off an on for much of my life. If you're curious I wrote a longer post on the subject over on my blog in August of 2016).
People have sometimes asked me if there was some specific event that led to my being a crossdresser. But honestly I don’t think there was. The desire just seems to have always been there for as long as I can remember. The connection between crossdressing and bondage was always there from the start too. Now that I’m older I tend to prefer the word transvestite to describe myself, I guess because it seems a bit more sexual and “naughty” than the word crossdresser, which sounds kind of cold and clinical to my ears. But that’s just me. I know some people find the word transvestite rather derogatory but I love the sound of it.
I’ve also been asked where I got the name Sandra. This was actually the name of a babysitter I had when I was very young. She was a High School girl who lived in the neighborhood and who seemed so beautiful and sophisticated. I was thoroughly smitten, and later when I thought of what I would call my femme self, it just seemed like the obvious choice. When I finally did begin dressing I was probably about fourteen years old. I wasn’t dressing all the way, of course, but whenever I was alone at home and had the chance, I would go into my mother’s office where she had a closet filled with clothes she no longer wore. I would try on her pantyhose and bras and then slip into one of her dresses and look at myself in the mirror. It was deeply exciting and erotic and the first time I ever masturbated and had an orgasm was right after one of these secret dress-up sessions. I was alone for the afternoon and after walking around in my mother’s dresses for a while it was time to put everything away as I knew someone might be home soon. I carefully put everything back just as I’d found it and went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. I didn’t really know what I was doing but I started playing with myself. I could tell something strange was happening as I stroked my cock faster and faster. At the time I remember thinking, “Why am I doing this?” but the excitement just continued to build and I felt I was going to explode. Which of course, I finally did. “What the hell was that?!” I thought. I went down to my room, turned on the stereo and listened to Pink Floyd and thought about what I’d done. Finally I figured that that sensation must be what people meant by sex. I knew I wanted to try it again but I also felt guilty about it and thought I must be doing something bad. And since this sex thing was all wrapped up in my wearing my mother’s clothes that made me feel even worse about dressing.
After school and on weekends I often had the chance to slip into my mother’s closet and play dress up. I remember one orange sheath dress she had that had just enough room so that I could get my arms inside of it, tightly pinning them to my sides. It was almost like being in that mummy bag that I’d fantasized about for so long. I tried to take the dress off and found that I was really stuck and couldn’t get my arms free. I started to panic, imagining that my mother or brother would come home and find me in this humiliating position. How would I ever explain what I was up to? Finally after much struggle I was able to get one arm free and as I strained against the dress I heard this little “rip”sound. Oh crap! I’d split a seam on the front of the dress. It wasn’t much, only a split of a couple inches but I was sure that I was found out. I hid the dress back in the closet, way in the back, and prayed that my mother would never find it. Looking back, it’s funny that I was so scared. Even if she had found it, she wouldn’t have had any idea how it happened and most likely would never have suspected me in the first place. But at the time I didn’t have the sense to think clearly about it and figured that it was a disaster. Of course nothing happened.
A few years later when my mother loaded up all her old clothes and was getting ready to give them away to Goodwill, I wanted to get ahold of those dresses, especially that sheath dress, so badly but didn’t dare. All I could do was watch helplessly as everything went away. I still miss some of those outfits and still love the look of those tacky clothes from the 70s.
As I continued to grow into puberty my sexual appetite really took off and I would dress whenever I could get away with it. Usually though I wouldn’t masturbate while dressing. I had this fastidiousness about keeping things clean and somehow it seemed wrong to do it while I was still wearing the clothes. Maybe occasionally I would do it while just wearing pantyhose but most of the time the pattern was that I would dress and then afterwards I would go into the bathroom or bedroom and jack off. This always left me feeling terribly ashamed and depressed. Over and over I would tell myself I wasn’t going to dress anymore and I certainly wasn’t going to play with myself anymore. Of course that never lasted for long. It’s really a shame that I was so guilt-ridden. We weren’t even a particularly religious family, but somewhere I came across this book about religion and sex that talked about the “sacredness”of it all and that only made me feel worse about myself and my dressing and masturbating. This lingering sexual shame was very strong and didn’t begin to lessen till many years later. Looking back, I could have just accepted myself and enjoyed what I was doing, but for so many years I felt so bad about it that dressing became this secretive thing that was quickly done and then put away till next time. There were many many afternoons and evenings spent secretly dressing and playing with myself, followed by depression and hanging out in my room listening to music (I must have listened to “The Wall” several hundred times - me and a million other depressed teenagers.) Sometimes I’d also drink a little or smoke some pot. I wasn’t heavily into drugs during my teens but certainly went through that phase. The pot seemed to loosen my inhibitions (except for the times when it made me paranoid) and gave me some relief from my unhappiness. In retrospect, all the self-inflicted emotional suffering was such a waste of time but of course there’s no going back.
Later, after high school, I wasn’t sure what to do with my life. I continued with school but dropped out several times and never really felt at peace about being a crossdresser. My luck with the opposite sex was basically non-existent for many years, and though eventually I had a few girlfriends and relationships, none of them ever worked out in the long run. I think deep down I felt that there was something terribly wrong with me and that no woman would ever really want to be with a guy like me. It wasn’t till many years later that I realized that this just wasn’t true, that some women (not very many, but a few) weren’t too bothered about being with a crossdresser and might even tolerate it or actually be into it. For a while I had a girlfriend who was very accepting, but things didn’t work out because I wasn't very passionate about the relationship. She accepted me but my heart just wasn’t in it and I didn’t appreciate her and treated her poorly.
But women weren’t the only sexual partners. My first few sexual experiences were with other guys and were pretty bad. I’d often wondered what it would be like to play bondage games with another TV like myself, but until the internet came around I never knew how to find another TV. So I had a few unsatisfying sexual experiences with guys who were either gay or bisexual and I always felt disappointed and unhappy afterwards. I knew I wasn’t really gay because I wasn’t particularly attracted to guys. But at the time I felt so limited in my options that sometimes when the opportunity came along I'd find myself doing things I wasn't really into, just to get some action. The result was that most of my early sexual experiences were not very satisfying at all.
For many years I would just dress by myself whenever I felt like it. I lived alone after moving out of my parent’s home, and though I never owned many clothes, I did have a few items hidden away that I liked. Over the years I also had a few friends, mostly women (just friends, not girlfriends), whom I was able to confess my crossdressing to and who for the most part were supportive and not too shocked. I was very lucky in that regard, as I’ve since met other TV/CD friends who have experienced painful rejections and heartbreak.
A big turning point came for me several years ago when I worked up the nerve to contact a transgender support group that met at a really nice TS girl’s house in Colorado. I didn’t think of myself as really being transsexual. The idea of hormones and sex-change surgery was appealing as a fantasy, but I knew I didn’t want to lose my penis. Basically I wanted to dress and look as good as I could and get tied up a lot, either by a guy, another TV, or a hetero couple. But I wanted so much to find someone to talk to about all this stuff and figured that maybe I could learn something here at the group. Most of the girls at the group identified themselves as transsexual, but there were a few CDs/TVs also, and everyone was warm and welcoming so I didn’t really feel out of place. I have to say that meeting these friends helped me immensely in learning to accept myself. I started to get more serious about dressing and trying to create a nice look for myself. But most importantly I learned to let go of the shame and self-torture that I’d been indulging in for so long due to my crossdressing. Sometimes those old self-defeating feelings will occasionally come back but I’ve found that now I can usually figure out what’s causing them and get rid of them without too much trouble. If anyone reading this is feeling isolated and alone and doesn’t know where to go I would definitely recommend getting in touch with any local groups you can find through the internet. Just meeting other people with similar situations, either in person or online, can do so much to make one feel less isolated. And isolation is something that so many people with gender or crossdressing issues deal with.
A few years ago, the girl who ran this support group put me in touch with a production company that was looking to interview crossdressers for a documentary show on MSNBC, which was called “The Secret Wardrobe.” At first I said, “No way!” But after thinking about it I wondered if maybe it would be a good experience. In any case, it would be a good way of “coming out” to my friends and family, which was something that I occasionally thought of doing. I knew I didn’t want my family to find out about my secret while channel surfing, so after a lot of hesitation I finally told several friends and family members about this TV show and that I was planning to go through with it. I was pretty lucky in how it turned out. I can’t say that everyone was completely thrilled with the news but for the most part the responses were supportive. A few times the initial shock and surprise were pretty strong but no one ever disowned me or said they couldn’t deal with it. I was very lucky and am really thankful that I had the chance to appear briefly on the show. MSNBC must have shown it a lot because people still occasionally write me and ask, “Was that you on TV the other night?”
For a long time I’d wanted to shoot bondage pictures, and around this same time I made my first attempts at shooting some self-bondage with a little film camera. Thank goodness for digital technology, which has made shooting so much easier. After I left Colorado and moved to California several years ago (May of 2001), I wrote to the folks at SweetTies and had the chance to take some bondage pictures with a real photographer. Since then things have only become busier and busier. At first I was really nervous about having bondage pictures on the net for everyone to see, but once I did it, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. I always say that if someone on the street did recognize me, it would probably just mean that they were also into crossdressing or just liked looking at bound TVs. Why else would anyone look at these websites?
In any case, if you’ve read this far, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to read my little story. I wish there were more juicy details to report but the truth can often be less exciting than it appears. My life before fully embracing Sandra was limited in so many ways and I only hope that the journey continues to new and exciting places. Thanks so much for spending a little time with me here and I hope you enjoy seeing me bound, gagged and helpless at last…Love, Sandra
An update (2010) - Los Angeles was a very good move for me, but it's also a tough and stressful city to live in. After being there for quite a few years and then occasionally spending time back in Denver I began to think that maybe the quality of life in Colorado was worth it, and I began to consider whether I could keep my site up and run it from Colorado, with occasional visits back to L.A. So in April 2010 I moved to Denver, on the west side close to the mountains.
Another update (2012) - Well, since that last update I spent almost two years living in Denver and had a nice time there. I made a few good friends and found some places to go as Sandra. All in all, I like Denver very much, and I have family and a history there, so I'll continue to visit from time to time. However, at the same time I found it tougher to leave L.A. than I had imagined. I returned for visits fairly often and always had a wonderful time. So when a close friend made me an offer to rent and stay at her house in the Valley, I really couldn't say no. I loaded up my things and in late January 2012 I was back in L.A. It's funny how life works out sometimes. What I really learned from moving twice in two years is that I'm really bad at predicting the future!