|
But here goes.
I am a lesbian. My partner is, naturally, also a lesbian. She has short hair and wears pants a lot. Yet, to me, she does not look even remotely 'masculine' or 'mannish.' She looks like an extremely beautiful woman who has short hair and wears pants.
Why does she wear pants a lot? Well, because they're comfortable and practical, and because she has a great butt. And because if you wear a skirt to work you have to wear pantyhose. You ever worn pantyhose? or high heels? Try it sometime. Pantyhose are a device designed by Satan to torment women and the same goes for high heels. OK, that's an exaggeration. In fact, they are both devices designed by men to get women's bodies to conform to a particular standard which straight men find attractive. The fact that they are both uncomfortable and inconvenient may or may not be a coincidence. I could get into why it is that men find it exciting when their women are wearing contraptions that limit their ability to move about freely, but that would take us far afield.
My point here is that you are working off traditional and fairly rigid definitions of what's "feminine" and "masculine." Part of the fun of kissing the whole heterosexuality thing goodbye is that you no longer have to do something stupid, inconvenient, annoying, or just plain not you just because a bunch of advertising magnates have told you that if you don't do it, you're not a Real Woman. I don't wear makeup. Never liked it, never got into it. Feel that I look better without it. My partner agrees. I feel the same way about her. Plus, frankly, when I kiss her, I would much rather taste her than Maybelline's Hottie Red Colorfast Lipembalment or whatever the hell they're pushing these days. If I were a straight woman, I would probably be forcing myself to wear this crap in hopes of attracting a man. But, thank God, I'm not, so I don't have to!
I might also point out that there are plenty of lesbians out there who do the whole femme thing to the nines, with lipstick and hose and heels and all the rest of it. You probably just don't know that they're lesbians, because to you, they look just like straight women.
The bottom line is: being "feminine" is not natural. The amount of work that most women have to go through to look "feminine" would probably shock you (unless you live with a woman who isn't shy about letting you watch the assembly process). The shaving, the waxing, the tweezing, the applications of creams and unguents and makeup...we opt out of a lot of that crap simply because we can. But from our POV, that doesn't mean we want to be men. We're just being what women are like *before* they put themselves through all this crap.
So. Why do gay men, who don't *have* to do any of this crap either, seem to really enjoy doing it? Well, that is a complex and thorny issue, but on one level it is simply an expression of their freedom from the traditional and rigid definition of masculinity. Many gay men have spent years smarting under the pressure of having to conform to an idea of manliness that just does not fit with who they are. When they finally realize they can jettison this crap, well, the excitement of freedom can be intoxicating, and for whatever reason, some of them end up getting into drag and doing all of that shit that I am so very happy not to have to bother with, *on purpose*--just because they can.
Anyway. Since you are no doubt a patriotic red-blooded American, think of it in terms of liberty and freedom. Why should we be oppressed by someone else's idea of what it means to be a woman or a man--especially since according to the mainstream definitions of masculinity and femininity, men are supposed to lust after women, and women are supposed to lust after men? We know we don't fit THAT part of the mold; so why bother with the rest of the crap attached to it?
You asked, I answered,
The Plaid Adder
|