I Want to Be a Drag Queen
76
The Plight of the Motherless Girl
Since losing my bank job in October of 2008, I've been 'working' at home as a freelance writer. Actually it is going really well (I'm pretty much matching my bank salary, which is was my goal--and I hope to do better next year), but I will say this:
Working at home is different than working in a cubicle.
How so? You may well ask.
Well, the main differences I've noticed so far are:
- You can work in your pajamas. Not like I do this, mind you, but I can if I want to. Just knowing this is a possibility has a profound psychological effect that builds over time, the net result being a general loss of fashion sense or giving-a-holy-crap about fashion in general, along with a certain wistful longing for shoes.
- You can watch Ru Paul's Drag Race during lunch (or anytime, actually). More on this later.
- You begin to memorize What Not to Wear episodes, and you realize that the world is indeed comprised of two kinds of people: those who think Stacy London is a bitch and those who do not. (I do not.)
- You become very close to your dog. Not unhealthy-close, but almost. Codependent close. You know, you look up from your lap top and see that he's giving you that look again, and you say out loud, "What? What is it with you? I'm so sick of you trippin' like this! Get off of me!" And you feel justified.
I have this theory that girls who did not grow up with mothers in their lives, or who did grow up with mothers but whose mothers were absent or so extremely dysfunctional as to be anti-mothers--those girls tend to struggle throughout their lives with what it means to be a girl. They struggle with clothing, fashion, and make-up.
They don't fit in at Tupperware parties. They don't care how Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston are feeling, ever. They tend to become best friends with guys who insist that they "aren't like normal girls" (even though they do say this backwards compliment to their chests). They choose careers that are nontraditional, not because they are drawn to a challenge but because they don't understand how to make traditional choices.
And their attempts at femininity come off as some kind of not-very-good drag act.
I put myself squarely into this category, and although I've always been aware of that aspect of my personality, I've become more aware of it since working at home. Part of me is sitting at my keyboard in a denim shirt and jeans bickering with my Malamute, and another part of me wants to go shopping with Ru Paul and buy girly, girly, girly things.
See, I would need that kind of help from Ms. Paul. I wouldn't be able to do it without help.
The Lure of Androgyny
I've always had an androgynous quality both to my looks and my personality. I blame my sick, absent mother for this, but in truth it probably is way less about her and way more about just who I am.
I've noticed that my own children all came out with a distinct personality, a defining characteristic if you will, and I've discussed this with them at length. They laugh about it because it feels so true. I think it is true. While nature & nurture both do their part in any given life, I think people come into this world as somebody.
So really, although motherless girls come into the world with special challenges, it's also likely that they came into the world as people who needed to be motherless girls.
I choose to think of it like that whether it's true or not.
For example, my oldest daugher came into the world screaming and kicking and balking--they had to literally yank her out of me after a dramatic premature labor (I'm coming! No I'm not! Yes I am! No I'm not!)--and today her reactions to stress still have that dramatic rebellious (yet indecisive) quality to them.
My second daughter was born quickly and was tired and blue for a good five minutes after birth. When she 'came to' it was with more of a whimper than a cry, and she still has that reclusive, whimpering quality under stress. She withdraws and twirls her hair while my eldest is lighting ex-employers on fire (or not!). Yet when she makes a decision, it's a fast one.
My son, the youngest, didn't even cry when he was born. He just looked around in wide-eyed wonder, as if to say, "Whoa... Far out..." And he's still the laid black clown of the whole clan.
Me, I was the first born son. My name was to be Sam. Except somehow, something was missing when I was born. So Pam it was.
That confusion has never really left me. And it's not even like it bothers me.
I'm drawn to it.
I remember playing 'dress up' as a kid and loving it better than anything. You could be anyone you wanted to be until puberty hit, and that fluid world of total choice and constant play felt like the natural and right way for the world to be. If you wanted to put your mother's slip on your head you could declare yourself a bride, and then five minutes later you could be one of the horses pulling Cinderella's chariot. (In fact, one game we played a lot as kids was 'horses'. Let's be horses!)
I clearly remember the summer I was no longer allowed to run around in shorts and no shirt all day outdoors. I was only seven or eight at the time, far from having anything remotely resembling breasts, and yet already it was time to start pretending to be a woman. It felt massively unfair. I still recall my utter and complete indignation.
I lost the battle but the war never ends.
I can still watch it on daytime TV whenever I want.
Female Female Impersonators
What fascinates me about drag is the way it parodies feminity and yet takes it dead seriously, all at the same time. Drag queens are both kidding and they aren't. In a lot of ways, drag queens understand more about what it means to be a woman than most women ever will or ever want to.
On Ru Paul's Drag Race a bunch of guys who dress up as girls in their professional lives compete in a reality show elimination contest. One by one these girls are eliminated until at the end one of them wins. Along the way there are tears and cat fights and weird tests of weirder skills (interpretations of 'Oprah' for instance). I was rooting for Chanel in this first batch of contestants, but she was eliminated halfway through. (I guess art doesn't always imitate life.)
Watching the show always makes me want to shop for wigs and platform lucite pumps, then go get fake nails--something I've never done. I had a writing instructor once, a best selling academic novelist (a woman) who liked to go out dressed up in drag as women she really wasn't. She'd wear scuffs and stretch pants and curlers to the grocery store. (Look! I'm a Polish bag lady!) She'd wear Marilyn Monroe gear to parties (Look! I'm Marilyn!), and cat's eye glassses and cardigans and saddle shoes to class. She liked to say she was a homosexual man trapped in a woman's body, which is an old, old joke, but mostly she just liked to play dress-up and refused to stop. She kicked it up a notch. And continues to do so.
She was a true female female impersonator.
Weirdly, there is a bit of a film tradition around the notion of women impersonating men impersonating women. In the thoughful and complex film Victor/Victoria Julie Andrews stars as a female impersonator who has a very dark secret indeed: She's a woman.There's nothing all that funny about it much of the time, and even today the movie shines a light into hidden corners of gender and social prohibition that on most days we prefer to leave in the shadows.
In the more lighthearted 2004 film Connie and Carla, Nia Vardalos (the star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and Toni Collette play two women whose dead end musical theater careers suddenly blossom when they stumble onto a covert gig as a couple of drag queens. Their identities as women are kept secret from even their drag queen friends until at the very end they reveal themselves for what they really are (what are they really?) and it all ends a bit more warmly and fuzzily than it might in real life. Everybody sings. Every body takes a bow.
No one gets beaten to a pulp out behind a bar somewhere.
Even more interesting to me than movie explorations is the phenomenon of the female female impersonator who is totally 'out' and is not only not ashamed of it, it isn't even a game anymore for her: it's a lifestyle choice. Dolly Parton certainly fits this category, as does Cher. Paris Hilton is close to the edge. Zsa Zsa Gabor was a female female impersonator par excellence of another generation, and so, believe it or not, was Marilyn Monroe (who used to go out without make up, without being 'on', and walk around town unrecognized without any disguise--it was the sex kitten that was the disguise--Norma Rae was just Norma Rae).
I think my fascination with the TV series What Not to Wear also stems from my closeted female female impersonation tendencies. In that show, a woman who looks like me (nondescript, plump, vanilla) is shoved into pencil skirts, silk tops, hot pink bags and three inch stiletto pumps, then made up and coiffed to look like, well, a girly girl. Sometimes the transformation is dramatic; other times it's painful, but always it holds my attention.
My partner Bill hates Stacy London (as, I've learned, do most of the men who have seen the show), but I love her. She's the female female impersonator version of Chanel from Ru Paul's Drag Race: She's a 'mensch,' the Jewish mom I never had--the one I can't go shopping without, the one who tells me the truth even though it hurts but only because she thinks I deserve better, and who fusses over my hair and tells me to go ahead and try on the Louboutin pumps because I can carry them off with that suit, and besides, I only live once.
These are not conversations I have with my dog. Or with anybody.
At 56 I am getting too old for dress up. I can't cram my ass into a designer anything anymore, and there isn't a drag queen this side of Houston who couldn't wear just about anything in my own closet better than I can. But the fantasy of ueber-girlishness still calls to me sometimes. I hear the mermaids singing on the beach. I do not think that they will sing for me.
So I just eat another peach. With ice cream. I dare to do that at least.
But if there is a heaven, when I get there, there will be spandex and spangles and diamonds waiting for me, and probably a tiara too. And when I put these magical items over my ordinary body, I will become fiercely female.
I want to be a drag queen.
Doesn't everybody?
In the end, what does it really mean to be a woman? If feminitiy is indeed a thing we can put on and take off, like clothes, like make-up, like a theatrical mask, then who are we really? Isn't identity itself a kind of game of charades? We chase our own shadows. We never know who we really are. But we know we love big hats and diamonds most definitely.
Perhaps it is only by donning the mask that we learn to respect the mystery behind it. Life is confusing, and we are all to some extent strangers to ourselves.
Perhaps it is only through play that we ever become real.
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Comments
Well said Hawkesdream. (BTW I love your screenname!)
Dear PGrundy...I thankfully relate to much of what you said...I also have a mate named Bill, I am 56...and I never could relate to the girly girlyness of females...it would be impersonating if I tried...I never did nail polish, never think about plucking my eyebrows...bulk from having my hair "done"....and often feel I don't quite "get it"...it is not that I want to be a man...they are a mystery to me too....yet female enough to get married and have 8 kids...I must have estrogen in me somewhere...liked your article...and glad that writing is profitable for you...
Good article.
Wow! This is truly an awesome hub.
Thanks for your comments Enlydia, RK U Phoenix! I appreciate you taking the time to read my latest ramblings. :)
Amazingly funny and insightful... I can totally identify with much of this.
And when (infrequently) I dress up and do makeup, nobody recognizes me. It's like Halloween and I expect candy to be given on such occasions.
I'm actually happier as me.
Hmm, Pam. Very well written, as usual, but--lol, I can't relate! (And I almost always do!). Aren't we all just amalgams of elements, anyway? I >guess< I am a girly type, as I have, ahem, about 3 (cringe) closets full of clothes, shoes, bags, the makeup, the nails, and what have you... But I've never been interested in anything traditional as far as female-ness, absolutely--'momness' somewhat included. But I'm also kind of athletic, very opinionated, independent and a bit ambitious--all thought of as sorta male traits.... Oh...my 'idol,' if I had such a thing, might be Katherine Hepburn--she was herself, and always was (and looked) elegant doing it.
And hey--Stacey is way cool! She's really smart and a goof, actually. And I say, if you know how to work it--there are shoes and bags for everyone!--that's just a fact. Only if you are interested in such things/expression, tho. Some just are not, and that's OK. :)
Hey, Pam! Is this one of the fluffy pieces you mentioned in the forums yesterday? If so, bring them on fluffly hubs! Laugh!
I can relate, boy can I relate! When I read the title of this hub I thought, "hey, that's just me last time I wore a dress!" :-)
I don't WANT to be a drag queen -- I'm happy not knowing what shade of lip gloss would accentuate my cheek bones -- but I sometimes feel, when I'm doing the dress-up bit, a pretender. I know exactly what you meant about how when we're kids we can be anyone or anything, before being dressed up like a girl. The photos of me in little girl clothes were the special event exceptions to the rule. There is so much in this excellent hub that I can relate to -- especially now, as I wear the same carpenter pants every day (I had to buy men's pants, as they're the only ones that aren't cut off half-way up the hips).
I love the story about the dress-up professor and your concluding statement about finding out who we are (or would like to be) through this kind of play. I bet most of us do this unconsciously.
I enjoy this hub. It is delightful and yet thought provoking. My six year old girl is already a tomboy who likes to dress up as a drag queen. She loves wearing dresses and having her nails painted right before she jumps into that mud puddle, or plays keep away with the neighborhood kids. She likes to look girly, but not at the expense of fun.
Right there with you, Pam. I was supposed to be "Charles". Surprise! There's comfort in knowing that I'm not the only female on the planet that hasn't figured it out yet, even though I've had plenty of years to try. No wonder I'm so fascinated with drag queens...they're doing everything I think I want to do, I think. Thumbs up.
I've never wanted to be a drag queen, Pam. A courtesan if ever a time machine comes by, absolument! But never, ever a drag queen. And I like drag queens. What I don't like is clothes or shoes or make-up or shopping for any of those things.
When I was a kid in the Navy in London, I did. But now, at nearly 58, I am doing everything in my power to make enough to work from home so I never again have to be tortured by brassieres or pantyhose or girly shoes or people who seem to care about nothing else but what Jennifer Aniston has to say.
And when I get to that place where I *can* afford a little more than just keeping body and soul together - I'll spend my clothes money on English cheeses and raspberries and figs and cashews.
Brilliant hub. Loved every minute of it!
Enjoyable reading as usual...Gives on a whole new prespective on life as a "drag queen."
This is amusing, let me explain. I have always been girlish-girlish, love makeup, dressing with feminine textures and such, and when I was a little girlish girl, I wanted to be a tomboy, but I had to pass a "test," by my friend who was a tomboy, such as climbing trees, and fences, and I didn't do very well, LOL, I thought being a tomboy was cool. The wonderful things is, that whatever we are, is perfect, we are born with certain predispositions as you mentioned, probably for our life expression.
Nowadays, I work at home like you, its a real job with our online business, and its 7 days a week for both me and Phil, and gone is the dressing up; its casual pants or velour pants with comfy tops.
A good hub to read on a lazy Sunday.
Oh Pam, I can so relate to this. My mum was never around when I was young so I was brought up by aunts and a granny. I hated wearing girly things and still do. I never wear make-up as I feel like a drag queen with it on. I know some people think I'm a bit of a dyke, but I'm not, I'm all woman, just not a girly girl. My eldest daughter loves high heels and can swing between very girly and the jeansy type. My youngest is only thirteen and is sooooo girly, Lord knows how I spwned her. She already wears make-up to school, for goodness sake!
Wow, I really enjoyed reading all of your responses, including the ones from those of you who can't relate--it was really fun, all the different reactions.
Elean, yes this is one in a series of 'fluff' pieces I am committed to writing here. I decided I need to lighten up--I would ask Violetsun and Lita to help me shop but I don't want anyone to know how big my butt is! lol!
We could buy bags and shoes though. :)
Even your 'fluff' pieces are good, Pam
This is the best thing I have read in a while. I, too, hated having to put on a shirt to play outside when I was nine. I begged to know why! "Because you're getting breast buds," my mother said.
All I could think was: so what! But I put on the shirt. I don't think I'm a drag queen type so much as a closet nudist. :D
Thanks Cindy!
PeacefulWmn, yes that's a bad moment, isn't it? That 'you have to wear a shirt' moment. Thanks for stopping by.
Hi Pam. I, for one, do not want to be a drag queen. Actors I suppose come pretty close, even males who are men playing men, I have to say that putting on make-up, a tailored costume, I could look in the mirror sometimes and say, "Damn..I clean up good." But as for the feminine drag queen, nope. If you know you can't get past the mastering of the shoes, what's the point in trying? Although I imagine those silk undies would be interesting.
Thanks for another funny and personal story!
That's great, seems like you are no longer suitable for full time bank job.
This is fascinating. I love your wicked descriptions of the whole thing.
Part of why I'm smiling is that I'm a 54 year old crippled man with a motorcycle jacket and when I go out wearing it, I swagger. When I have never driven a motorcycle in my life and had my last fist fight at age twelve. Oh yeah, baby. I'm real macho.
I'm also considering an Australian bush hat like my son in law got, because it looks good. Its connection with my real realtiy as opposed to the fantasy of running off to Australia to stomp around in the bush wrestling alligators is that I am getting strong enough for plein air excursions (drawing outdoors) and whether it's the Outback or the back yard, a hat with a wide brim is rather a sensible thing.
Also, the leather biker jacket hasn't worn out the way all too many normal jackets do. Leather can take a beating and I have had a bit of an adventurous life in some other ways. Some of the other middle aged fake Hell's Angels do own motorcycles and drive them on weekends but they never were homeless and never did camp and live off the land for two months with a couple of other weirdos eating leaves and rice and trying to catch fish with their bare hands.
Even more often it's jeans or black jeans and a black t-shirt or turtleneck. I've been the Man in Black a lot of times in different roles. Not the bad-guy man in black, the good-guy man in black, the Zorro man in black who isn't the white-hat man who's all shiny and accepted by society, but the black-hat one who appears when there's some trouble and goes away to his own life, does not want to settle down and start a farm. The adventurer. The wanderer. The outsider.
Very often the artistic outsider, the beatnik uniform of black turtleneck and jeans, the old goth before there was goth.
You are a woman who has made other human beings from scratch. You are womanly for that. You raised them and you did a good job of it, when you write about them you are not complaining about how they're the worst rotten people in the universe and ungrateful for all you sacrificed, you don't complain and find them unfit to live the way a real rotten mother does. You talk about their differences in this article with appreciation. So there you are in the real world being something rare and wonderful, a good mother.
But that doesn't get the spotlight, the limelight, even the imagined limelight.
I dressed up as a medieval Viking for many years too, still have the garb. I am considering taking up a different historical recreation and when I do it'll probably be the wandering trader persona again, what I settled into where I can show off my artistic and crafts skills.
It's about showing off. Dress-up like that as child or adult faces the reality that day to day life is actually dull and you get told constantly that you're not special and Angelina Jolie or Wossname the action hero, they're special, you're not. Bruce Willis, it took me a minute to remember the name of even one of the actors that has that specialness. But you dress up and I dress up and we're actors who get to play that fun part for a while, who get to do something different.
In this time and place, in this country there isn't a coherent culture. There's a patchwork of cultural fragments and most people come from multiple ethnic cultures that have all adapted to America -- and this immense blandness. Ubiquitous blandness. When I look at cultures around the world, coherent ones, oh there are many days a year, many festivals where people get all dressed up and proud of who they are and show off both gender and identity.
You often see these people on those festival days like teenagers painting spots on their blue faces getting into Yahoo images. Male or female, it doesn't matter, we are outside their context and I can only presume that either androgyny is part of it or that more likely, the patterns and colors tell their cute babes that the male ones are hot guys and the hot babes are dressing as hot babes. And it's not captioned so it gets read in terms of Dolly Parton when it's not.
Human beings decorate themselves and on some occasions in most cultures there is dressing up, there are days of being splendid and strutting in a descriptive costume that has some meaning. Most of all of "Look at me, I'm cool" So I stand out as the Man In Black and don't have the festival gear for it yet. Maybe when I get my SFWA card, I will go ahead and spend the proceeds at International Male and get something very classy in that garb, a suit like Neil Gaiman would wear, a leather coat or something and a collarless black silk shirt and pants that aren't jeans but are probably leather (I still dislike dress slacks even in my favorite color.)
When I stopped having to work for other people I stopped wearing anything but some costume that expressed some part of the real me. You are a spectacular woman. Brilliant, creative, a wonderful writer, and I have said many times: a beautiful woman is an actress. A beautiful woman is doing performance art unless she happens to have the kind of looks that if she's sopping wet having fallen in the lake five minutes after waking up from having had her head shaved the night before when she's drunk she looks good.
But even such women have performance art -- it's motion and style as much as it's health and vigor. It's the ones with the chutzpah to come up from that bath laughing and posing for the artist that followed her out of the cabin that is the great beauty.
The rest it's just her palette.
At the bank you and everyone worked in the muted neutrals palette of a sober traditional institution where the corporate culture said you have to be a nonentity. Now you work for yourself and you're a writer.
There is nothing in this world to say that you couldn't do this in high heel Barbie silppers and pink silk pajamas with a fluffy peignoir over them as easily as scruffy sweats. There is no one to say it's Not Professional, though I would advise at least wearing the Barbie evening gown if you have to go meet a client in person instead of the Barbie Sex Kitten home outfit.
Or you could always dress to my fantasy and sit down at the word processor in a leather corset and a good three layers of gypsy skirts with a lot of jewelry and wild hair. Or anything you like. Seriously, the one thing about the true beauties -- and this is drag queens and women alike -- is that they love the costume the way I love my Prismacolors and they are preparing a show. They know it is art and the art is from within, an art of expression.
You're right about Cher and Dolly Parton. The grand glitz act is not restricted to drag queens. Some of whom are women saving up to have the surgery they need to be legally acknowledged as women, there's some of the ambiguity in itself. Others are just dressing up and the subculture accepts both, they all flock together.
So be you, don't be ashamed. Dress up how you want. Do it for the mirror and smile at yourself for having the freedom to be you.
A dear androgynous queer person, biologically male and liked it that way but expressing his feminine side about half the time, never wore entirely male or female clothing. He also never wore the same outfit twice. She had a sewing machine and used to tear his clothes up and redesign them for herself before wearing it again, most of his-her confections and fantasies were thrown together the night before like theatrical costuming. He also never wore all male clothing or all female clothing.
At festivals and parades and events in New Orleans he'd go half and half. He had a beard on one side and very long black hair, would wear makeup on the beardless side, wear a half-tux half evening gown and do the Victor/Victoria dance with herself down the street. It was glorious. That was the most dramatic version -- but on regular days he'd have a lady's lavender blouse and a man's jeans, still the half beard, some makeup and wax the mustache side -- various things like that.
He was beautiful. Looked
gorgeous from either side.
His body type was tall and thin. Bony, graceful by his motions. His nose was large and his chin was a little small on the male side, a little big on the female side. It didn't matter.
Oddly enough, what people respond to are the symbols and archetypes rather than the real physique of the person wearing the symbols.
I've been the Man in Black for decades now and people who describe me will wind up overguessing my height by a good four or five inches and underguessing my weight by up to forty or fifty pounds.
Some of that is the scoliosis -- I really am carrying 25 to 30 pounds of extra bone density that doesn't show as flab. But some of it is that wearing black loose clothing implies something and my facial expressions and intense personality carry certain assumptions about build -- people treated me as if I looked like Salamander (male side) a lot of times when I didn't, when I'm short and squat and crooked.
And for all the decades I was in denial about my disabilities no one saw them. No one noticed that I can't stand up straight, that I can't sit up straight, that if I do stand up straight I am literally canted over at a ten or twelve degree angle rather than vertical. Nope. I look more casual, that's all. I'm usually leaning on something with a James Dean laziness.
I have been told I move like a cat.
It is literally true. Cats have the least efficient gait of any animal alive. Each part of the cat is consciously and deliberately placed where the cat wants it, this gives stealth and balance. I have to move like that because if I forget it I'll go lumbering along like a broken thing and fall down.
I walk over ice and slippery things that my very healthy tall fit daughter in law is terrified I'll fall down on and I'm going across them like the cat, while she falls down with her long free stride and physical-strength casualness.
But socially people don't see that.
Socially people respond to symbols and cultural icons. You are a madonna but want to dress like Madonna and now you're free to.
There is no supervisor, now or ever again, coming over to tell you to tone it down.
So if you want glitter nails and a big wig or a collection of them, if you want Barbie shoes and occasionally to go to work in a green evening gown -- then just tightwad it. Go to the thrift stores. Pick up the pretty shoes someone wore once for a wedding where she was a bridesmaid that are in your size and do what Salamander did, rip up three different prom dresses to make the unique spectacular one that is you.
Just because you can work in your pajamas doesn't mean that's what you want to wear. Maybe if you wore the tiara, it would be a big reminder of that joyous freedom you have now.
I have done this. My first few months as a street artist I would just wear jeans and a paint stained tee shirt -- good costume for that. But then one day something snapped while I was at home painting and I put on Ironwolf. I dressed up in my Society for Creative Anachronism gear and I sat down and spent the day painting, then wandered out to the grocery to pick up some food. I lived in the French Quarter.
No one noticed. I was in the right context to be able to do that in person, though eventually I drifted back into Man in Black. It's only in the middle ages that I wear colors, usually the bold primary and secondary colors of medieval splendor and almost always the royal fabrics, velvets and brocades. Sometimes even now it's a black poet shirt rather than the turtleneck.
It's all right to be extreme. It's especially all right to be extreme when you are real -- when you are self employed in an arts profession. Then your style as it evolves is a calling card of the person you are in life too. You're a writer -- and we writers are either never seen or center stage being literary lions.
Enjoy it.
Siew Cheng--LOL! Seriously, my fantasies about high heels are the least of the many, many reasons I am no longer suitable for a bank job!
Christoph--It is kind of like acting, isn't it? I've always wanted to try that too. Thanks for stopping by.
Robert--Thank you for those insightful thoughts, as always. Yes I do feel honored to have had to chance to raise those kids. I'm lucky--I LIKE them, each of them, as people. I really feel it was an honor not a chore. I can see you in black. Get that pith helmut! :)
Pam I'm with Chris, the shoes are a killer and I find the lacy gloves a dead give away, but the silk undies, darling they are to die for .
Lmfaorrtf.
Great Hub
Thanks for stopping by agvulpes! I read somewhere here that lingerie hubs get killer ratings--I should try one of those next and see if its true!
Pam would you model the lingerie yourself. If not I'm sure Christoph would be available!
Ag, I'm pretty sure at this age that Christoph would look a LOT better in it! lol!
I think he would do it if I asked him nice. :)
pkoson is using a new cut and paste now, wonder how many hubs will be hit this time?
Cindy, I always wonder about these spam comments. Is there some program that just hits all the hubs, like some 'bot' or something? Or do these folks actually go hub to hub copying and pasting the same link?
It's kind of annoying, however they do it.
CC was saying earlier he thinks it's a bot as this person was hitting so many. He's got a new cut and paste thing going and was hitting a whole lot more about an hour ago!
Pam great hub. I can relate as observer only, being male. i have never wanted to play dress up especially not in my mother's clothes. i developed a distance from my mom in my life.However, i am very happy to take off female clothing especially from a female and silk stockings and high heels work better than Pj's or a track suit.LOL
Great hub , very different from your usual stuff1 . i like it more please.
Um....Agvulpes has a better body for lingerie than Christoph. And more experience.
This was really interesting and thought-provoking. I can relate to a lot of it very much. My mother wasn't missing or absent in any sense of the word, but she was completely uninterested in fashion, makeup, etc. of any sort, so that part of my education was completely lacking. My entire daily beauty regime consists of showering, combing my hair, and letting it air-dry. I wouldn't know how to apply most types of makeup (let alone apply it attractively) if my life depended on it, and I shave my legs about twice a year, if that.
The upside of this is that I have a helluva lot fewer body issues than the girls who were trained how to hide their "flaws" with clothes and posture and makeup.
But I do sometimes look at beautifully dressed and made up women and wish I even knew HOW to do that. It's fun to occasionally make some jaws drop and I still have the kind of body that could do that, easily, if I put a little effort in, but how? Tight jeans and a nice blouse is about the best I can manage.
Thanks Cindy--I kind of suspected that.
Sixtyorso--I completely agree about the stockings and garters. Whoever invented pantyhose should be hauled off by a bunch of heterosexual guys and shot. I remember well before they were available--When I was in junior high we still had to wear garters or panty girdles. Stockings lasted longer then too. I'm not sure why.
Captain--There's nothing saying that Christoph AND ag can't model. :)
kerryg--When my mom was well she was kind of pathologically the other direction. When I see my sisters (which isn't often) we joke about it---the ritual female humiliation in which Mom & Grandma stand on either side critiquing what is wrong with each of our hair, make-up, and clothing. Most of the time my Mom wasn't very available though (I guess in a way that's good) and so I never really got the hang of the whole fashion/hair/makeup thing. Also, we were fairly poor, so that ruled out any kind of serious shopping. We wore what my grandmother sewed us and what other people handed down to us.
I worked my way through college in my 20s so I was poor then too--Never did go through that 'Sex & the City' single glamour phase in which I was gainfully employed with discretionary income to blow on clothes. I went right from poor student to motherhood.Most of the time I don't even care, but I admit to the fascination with these shows and with the female impersonators. It fascinates me, the whole gender thing and people's sometimes extreme reactions to it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
One suggestion: Discovery Channel! History Channel!! Bio!!! For your own good, stay away from the trashy channels!!!! YOU'LL KILL YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL! Point taken CW. :)
Pam - Fluff piece?! I think not! This was engaging, humorous and made me go "Yeah Baby! Bring on the flannel!!" :)
I love men...couldn't be more heterosexual if I tried, but I'm allergic to anything pastel or made of lace. I can make exceptions for silk....that whole drag queen feeling I think. I probably own maybe three things that could be considered make-up, have one pair of heels in my closet and have banished pantyhose forever from my life. I couldn't be happier :)
I kinda wonder why there are a lot more girls out there looking more masculine lately. They are dressed more comfortably rather than showing off a lot of skin and boobies. Now I haven't seen too many men dressed as girls. No wait, I did recently?! He wore a short kacky pants with a pink T-shirt saying, "laugh all you want, this is my girlfriends t-shirt." I didn't stick around to find out if his boobs were real or not, but hey, he had a nice hour glass figure. tehe
Hi Spryte--I don't think I look much like a guy either but I also love flannel, especially flannel pajamas. I usually buy my shirts and jackets at Goodwill. You can find stuff there that would be unaffordable if you bought it new. I live in my flannel PJs for about five months out of the year. :)
mayhmong--hmmm, interesting! The last place I worked it was kind of the opposite--lots of skin. They'd send out a memo every spring about 'appropriate dress' but lots of girls came with their bellies and boobs hanging out anyway. I don't think girls are as shy about that as they were back in the day.
From a mans point of view there is possiblly nothing more sexy than seeing a lady in flannelette PJ's . Minus the bottoms of course . cough cough.
I can't believe I just said that!
And I'll only model with CR if I get to be on top.!
Captain or no Captain.
Ag! My, my! Well, good for you--there may be snow on the mountain but there's still fire in the furnace! I will let you and Chris duke it out over who gets to be on top though. I don't want to get in the middle of that! :)
Great reading pgrundy,makes me think of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, I loved that movie.Excellent job putting this together as usual. :)
Hi blondepoet! I liked that movie too. :)
Thanks for stopping by.
Well, I think we're all born sort of half and half. That's why we're alternately confuzed and understanding of each other. I've never questioned my femininity, I am the real deal, though definitely more pleasing with the makeup than without. But, I understand there are many women who are maybe more 1/3 and 2/3 on either end of the spectrum -
A great analyzation, as always you crack me up!!!
I think most of life is acting, and maybe the sum of the acts is who we are. Some act "better" than others, thus their appeal.
You got me thinking on this one. =))
Hi marisue--Thanks for reading it. I thought I'd try "something completely different" as they say on Monty Python! lol!
this was different alright, never know what to expect from you!!! LOL
Pam, enjoyed your hub. I never wanted to be a female drag queen, but the desire to wear lingerie has been part of my life since elementary school. I envied the girls in their frilly and colorful undies. Later in college I began to acquire lingerie from my girlfriends. Now I regularlly puchase my own lingerie and truly enjoy the shopping as well as wearing panties under my male clothes while at work. The feeling of secretly wearing lingerie while working with female coworkers is sensual and exciting. Work does not seem to be as stressful when I'm wearing a pair of lace trimmed panties.
threesweds, I think that is not really all that unusual. Of course, it's hard to know, but if I was a guy I'd want silky underwear too. Thanks for stopping by.
pgrundy, I think there's something to your theory about motherless girls (although, I have to say, that I've always kind of felt that my own "feeling feminine", regardless of what I wear) is something I was just kind of born with. My mother would buy me "cute, fluffy, little-girl" clothes, and I couldn't wait to grow up and get myself some things that were "graceful and elegant" (although I never wanted "glamourous" - just pretty and feminine).
On the other hand, I had two little sons before I had my daughter; and when I had her I was suddenly faced with the thoughts of what I would try to teach about her femininity. I gave her an elegant and beautiful name, and decided that I would try to raise a strong, independent, daughter who knew she could be strong, smart, and independent - but feminine and elegant too. I used to think about how I "wanted her to know her elegance". She had her overalls and little baseball cap, but I bought I pale pink and cream. In a time when toddler girls often wore "cutesy" and short outfits, I bought her some longer, kind of elegant, looking little dresses.
Just as I had with my sons, I made sure she was encouraged to thinking about reading, math, history, sports, etc. etc - only with that "extra thing" of adding in (I hoped) an awareness of her own femininity/elegance. I wanted the kind of femininity she appreciated to be one that served her well regardless of where she was or how old she became. I wanted her to have a kind of natural sense of her own femininity, which is a very separate thing from being glamorous, sexy looking, or cute.
She is 24 now, I sometimes look at her (and think of how she's been all through growing up) and kind of secretly take credit for how she views/shows her own femininity. She has a way of wearing what's fashionable, while not wearing what is not becoming (in terms of femininity). She's never resorted to "showing skin" as a way of turning heads; and she has a way of making basic jeans part of a fairly elegant outfit.
I tend to think that the Drag Queen's version of femininity is (as may be expected) a man's idea of what an attractive woman is (and men, of course, will always find something appealing in the "glamorous, sexy" look - even if they don't want that look for their own daughters).
I know that real femininity is not the Drag Queen version; and I tend to think our femininity is what we feel, how we think, and how we move, regardless of what we wear or whether we had mothers who made sure we got pink baseball caps and crystal ballet slippers to hang on the wall. I think what's in fashion/style is often the thing that stops a lot of girls/women from going with their own feminine instincts; and in a business world that tells women, "You won't be taken seriously if you look/sound too feminine," even women who know how to come across as professionals would never err on the side of selecting a particularly feminine looking top to wear under that blazer.
Maybe none of us needs to be "taught femininity". Maybe we just need to be strong enough and independent enough not to let the world discourage us from showing it. :)
Pam - Great read as always - you are a wonderful story teller and totally original (Before you ask, no, I've never had the urge to wear women's panties but I have no problem with men who do!
Lisa, what a thoughtful response! Thank you for sharing it. I take credit for some things with my kids but not others. In general, I feel honored to have had the chance to raise them and to know them now that they are adults. Anything I did right was probably by accident, but I did make a conscious effort not to inflict the female elder torture on my girls that my female elders inflicted on me and my sisters. :)
Rik, thanks for stopping by! I actually like plain cotton undies myself. But when I was younger, I went for the silky stuff. There's this movie with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins in which he plays a baseball player and she plays this groupie who makes him wear women's panties under his uniform to keep him alert. I thought of that with the last comment. That was a good movie.
I didn't ever think that I wanted to be a drag queen, but now I wonder.. The other Patricia has to get dressed for work and look fit and stunning , while I work at home. I could wear PJs, as you say. Instead, I get fully dressed, and made up, and particularly on days when I am going no place at all, I wear loads of eye make-up, especially eye liner. Why? Because I want to. Well, that's what I thought. now I'm a bit worried that deep down I want to be a drag queen....
No worries patricia! I wear eye make up every day too. I don't think I am capable of leaving the house without it anymore. But as you say, I wear it even when I don't leave the house. I wonder what would happen if I didn't wear it? It's been so long... maybe I'd disappear or something!
pgrundy, like you, I only take credit for some things. (I probably shouldn't say this, but now that they're all grown, I take blame for nothing. :) (Ok, sort of joking; sort of not. :) )
Hi pgrundy. I have no idea about any of this, but the fact that you are making a living online makes me want to sing and dance. You certainly deserve to be able to stay at home regardless of what you wear. Honestly that is the best news I have heard in the eight months I have been on hubpages. You are such a beautiful woman, and neither age or bum span is gonna change that!
Lisa--I like that! "I take blame for nothing!" Seriously, that's a healthy attitude. I mean, by the time they are all grown it's up to them, so even if we did make mistakes, it's not like we can rewind and fix them. My kids are remarkably forgiving. I try to be honest, and apologize when appropriate, and love them. That's all any of us can do.
Earnest--Thank you, that is so sweet! I'm really happy to be at home too. I'm afraid I wasn't a very good corporate 'fit'. So the economic downturn, so far, has been good for me. I'm pretty sick of the 'jobs' available here anyway. It seems they all take way more than they give. That being the case, might as well work for myself. At least I get along with the boss that way!
Hi Pam. I can relate to this hub. I've gone through phases of being very feminine, the corporate feminine look too. The rebel came out in my late 30's. I would never leave the house without mascara, now I don't worry about it. Did a 360 turn. But I know I have the 'beautiful woman' inside. So do you. Your petticote hangs out all the time. We have things in common. I have a strange relationship with my mum too and what you said resonated. Interesting.
Hey Earnest, your brain has morphed into a bum I think! It punctuates your every sentence. lol
Thanks Jewels! Relationships with moms aren't much written about, yet they are so powerful. Mine has be dead fifteen years now, but I find my relationship with her still evolving. I love being at home and not having to dress corporate. I don't miss that part of it at all. :)
I was chatting to my two daughters today about your hub, as both are completely different to me and wear make-up and are girly-girls. Although, the oldest tends to hang out with the boys and be their best mate, she still always looks girly. We discussed your theory and they think that as I was always around, it stopped them from having an identity crisis!
Hawkesdream says:
8 months ago
How true is this hub! I think the trick is to be who we are, but, also to have the ability to move in those circles where we normally wouldn't be, in such a way, that, no one really knows if we should be there or not.