is part of DreamSpinner Press’s Dreamspun Desires eBook Subscription
Receive two novels in digital format per month for the price of one regular novel!
For more information, please visit DreamSpinnerPress.
Cross-Dressing in Literature and Life
Hi and welcome! I’m Tara Lain and today I’m introducing my new book, Taylor Maid. This is a champagne cocktail of a book, full of fun and tropes. A dominant theme in the book is cross-dressing. One of my heroes dresses as a woman in order to hide from his father who wants to marry him off. And, of course, all kinds of mistaken identity and hijinks ensue.
In this theme, the book falls into a long-standing tradition. Cross-dressing has been an important part of history, both in literature and life. Most frequently, women dress as men in order to participate in the greater freedom that men have enjoyed throughout the years. We all know stories of women who passed as boys in order to fight in wars. The American west tradition included many so-called men who were discovered to be female on their deathbeds. In literature, no one loved cross-dressing more than Shakespeare, and fully one fifth of his plays like Cymbeline, The Merchant of Venice, and Twelfth Night include female characters dressed as men. In As You Like It, he goes so far as to have his woman pretending to be a man dress up as a woman to help a friend.
Men cross-dressed as women are less frequent but still prominent in history. Odysseus’s mother dressed him as a girl to prevent his having to fight for the Greek army, though he was eventually uncovered by Achilles. In the Mahabharata, Arjuna in exile disguises himself as a women and becomes a dance teacher. Men sometimes dress as women with seduction on their minds. Odin dressed as a female healer in order to seduce Rindr and Lord Byron’s Don Juan masqueraded as female to enter a harem. Men have dressed as women to be spies as in the true story of M. Butterfly, and as part of religious traditions.
As for me, I find cross-dressing fascinating and have introduced in into my books several times for different purposes from being a drag queen to spying – in Hearts and Flour, Genetic Celebrity, Canning the Center, Sinders and Ash, Wolf in Gucci Loafers, and now in Taylor Maid. I figure if Shakespeare could have his girls realistically confused for boys, turnabout is fair play!
I hope you enjoy Taylor Maid with all its fun themes – marriage of convenience, mistaken identity, “must marry or lose the inheritance”, and, of course, boy dressed as girl.
Tara Lain writes the Beautiful Boys of Romance in LGBT erotic romance novels that star her unique, charismatic heroes. Her first novel was published in January of 2011 and she’s now somewhere around book 23. Her bestselling novels have garnered awards for Best Series, Best Contemporary Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance, Best Gay Characters, and Tara has been named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. In her other job, Tara owns an advertising and public relations firm. She often does workshops on both author promotion and writing craft. She lives with her soulmate husband and her soulmate dog in Laguna Beach, California, a pretty seaside town where she sets a lot of her books. Passionate about diversity, justice, and new experiences, Tara says on her tombstone it will say “Yes”!
I haven’t got the chance to read this but a friend of mine had and liked it; so am adding this to my shelves.
Congrats on the new release, Tara!
Thank you dtorini! I hope you love it! : )
This book is wonderful, loved all of the characters, except for Taylor’s dad.
Thank you, dear. He is a pretty nasty dad! : )
Thank you for the interesting post involving cross dressing.
Thank you H.B. I loved the trope — and the fact of cross dressing. One reader said it was hard for her to believe that Taylor didn’t guess Ally was a guy for so long, but there are many documented cases of both men and women going through entire lives and only being discovered to be the opposite gender on their death beds! : )
The book sounds amazing!
Thank you, Sabrina! : )
Thank you so much to Love Bytes for helping me launch Taylor Maid. Delighted to be here! : )
I am amazed by cross dressers. My partner is no longer surprised when I show him a picture of a gorgeous girl and it is actually a guy. Occasionally the opposite. I am especially impressed with some Japanese cosplayers and Kpop stars that look stunning and very convincing dressed as the opposite sex. I find there is a lot of prejudice against people who just like wearing clothes typically assigned to the opposite sex when it is not for a performance. It is a shame people can’t just wear what they feel comfortable or special in.