“Cross-dressing is the wearing of clothing and other accoutrement commonly associated with a gender… that is seen as different than the one usually presented by the dresser… Nearly every human society throughout history has distinguished between male and female gender by the style, color, or type of clothing they wear and has had a set of norms, views, guidelines, or even laws defining what type of clothing is appropriate for each gender. Okay, so what exactly is crossdressing? Though there are probably several variations of its definition, let’s use the following one from Wikipedia as our frame of reference: Its purpose is simply to shed more light on what’s been a long-standing reality – there are many men who choose to dress in women’s clothing and, therefore, wear women’s lingerie. It’s not meant to speak in support of it, nor in opposition to it. The purpose of this post is not to provide a subjective assessment of crossdressing. But quickly searching the internet for websites discussing crossdressing issues, it’s easy to get a sense of the great strength of this often unrecognized source of intimate-apparel demand. It’s pretty difficult to estimate how many men constitute this demographic. But far pre-dating this trend, men, choosing to dress as women, have long been buying bras, panties, and shapewear made for women.

Compression T-shirts, briefs that both slim and enhance, and tummy shapers, sometimes known as mirdles, have become hot topics of talk shows and fixtures of men’s underwear departments in stores across the United States.

One of the hottest trends in the intimate apparel industry over the past couple of years has been the growth in sales and availability of men’s shapewear.

Flickr mature crossdresser