My cross-dressing these days is (or seems) relatively non-sexual in nature. That is, dressing sexily makes me feel sexy, but that's not the prerogative of crossdressers after all! Most of the time it just feels right - as discussed on this board many times. However...
When I first began to dress, and think about dressing, back when I was 12 or so, I had quite a few sexual fantasies. In some I was a girl, but in others I was a boy who was forced to dress and live as a girl - which I found a huge turn on. I believe this isn't uncommon among CDers, and the standard explanation is that it's our minds' way of getting around the censor: if we're forced to do it then we don't need to feel guilty about it, right? That may or may not be true: I'm not sure. Whatever the reason back then, though, I still find that I'm attracted to sexual fantasies in which I'm forced to be submissive - not usually through a physical threat but more often something like mind control (I'm scared of violence even in sexual fantasies, see!). Nowadays it makes no difference whether I'm male or female in these fantasies, and these days they seldom or never take the form of 'forced fem', as I think it's called, but still - there's a family resemblance with those early fantasies.
So, what I'm wondering - apart from the usual question of whether other people have had the same experience - is, did my submissive tendencies come about as a result of my finding a way to process my CDing tendencies, or did my CDing fantasies take a submissive route because I was already that way inclined? Is there a cause and effect here, and if so in which direction?
(One last memory, which makes me think my sub life goes back a long way, is from when I was about four, and had a simple jigsaw showing a dog with a suitcase, and I used to snuggle under the covers and imagine the dog had shut me in the case and was taking me off somewhere as a damsel - sorry, little boy! - in distress. I remember finding that most exciting!)
ETA: Rereading this it looks as if my sexual life revolves around submission, which would be a gross exagerration. It doesn't - but I do find that one form of attractive fantasy.
Kisses,
Lucy