Eccentric Flower:199909/Further Adventures of a Novice Femme

I've been getting a number of emails about gender lately - mine, mostly, but sometimes other people's. I owe many replies, but I've been waiting on them because I wanted to write this first ... and I didn't want to write this until I came back from the Great Leg-Waxing Experiment.

But before I tell the fun stories, something a little deeper and more serious.

For those who came in late or who haven't been keeping track (and, frankly, I can't blame you for that - I'm a mass of contradictions), here is my Official Gender Statement.

I don't want a sex change. I finally figured that out earlier this year. I am perfectly happy being a boy. The thing is, I want to be a boy who frequently behaves and dresses in a fairly girly way. So I suppose the "I am happy being a boy" statement boils down to: I am okay with the equipment between my legs.

I often think that I would have been happier being a girl, but that is not out of a desire to have breasts or a uterus. It's because I figure I would have gradually decided on a girly set of behavior patterns for myself anyway, because I seem to think those are optimal - and if I actually were a girl, I wouldn't have to worry about getting jeered at because those patterns didn't fit the stereotypes of my gender. Does that make sense?

More briefly said: If I'm going to act like a girl anyway, it would have been easier to be one.

Of course, I don't act like a "girl" or a "boy" per se. That's where culture comes in, and it's a real killer. See, I have stereotypically male behaviors and stereotypically female behaviors. Maybe you do too. The problem is - and feel free to dispute this - in this society a woman who has the occasional male behavior is acceptable, but a man who has the occasional female behavior is not. Or, rather, is much less acceptable.

I don't make these alterations to my appearance because of a need to "look more female" - not precisely. I do them to make myself look more beautiful, sexier. It just happens that my idea of what's "sexy" is a very female-looking idea.

Also, I don't do these things for other people's benefit. I do them primarily for me. They make me happy and they make me feel pretty, which boosts my self-confidence. Getting snarled at on the street, or feeling ugly, lowers it. Frankly, I want all the self-confidence I can get; I have traditionally been about a quart shy.

So - that's the Gender Policy from the home office. Now to the fluffy stuff. (Those who don't want to hear me babble about makeup and other such things like a refugee from Glamour, now would be a good time to leave.)

Let's see. Friday, as I believe I said way back then, was a girl day. Saturday was a boy day; we ran errands and I was all practicality and femminess would have just gotten in the way. Sunday: girl again. That was the day of the Trip to the Mall. Monday: mostly a boy day. Today, believe it or not, is also a boy day - despite having my legs waxed and my eyebrows reshaped and spending an hour making sure my appearance was perfect before I went to the salon. I even wore foundation outside the house! But nonetheless it was a boy day.

And I am getting ahead of myself.

Having received the recommendation from the MAC people at Saks, Nonelvis and Judy and I went out to the Burlington Mall. It could have been a simple MAC expedition, but things happened.

I have noticed something about both Nonelvis and Judy, and they are far from the first women to do this: They actually ask me for real advice on clothing. Now, heaven knows I am no fashion plate, but for some reason this keeps happening. I think it's because a lot of men will play dead. They'll nod and say, "It looks nice, dear," because they either don't want to get involved or they don't want to say what they really think.

I am never coarse about it ... but I will give real advice. I'll say things like, "Well, the skirt part is nice, but the bodice is going to do strange things when you put it on, with your bustline" ... or, as when Nonelvis found a very nice gray knit top, but the matching gray cardigan was too small and not available a size larger: "You know, a black cardigan would look just as good over that as the gray one. Hang on and I'll go walk over and see if they have any black ones in the right size."

I guess this is useful and all, but it surprises me that my opinion is welcome. I mean, what if I'm wrong? I'm sometimes a lousy judge of what looks good on me, which is one reason I don't take more risks.

Anyhow, it sort of developed into a clothes-shopping expedition, which was okay with me. But I didn't find anything for myself. I wasn't in a clothes-buying state, but I was still looking for The Perfect Shoe. It wasn't anywhere to be found.

Kymm commented to me that even women sometimes have trouble finding shoes in their size. It's true. If you covet the boutique shoes (I cannot go near the Steve Madden store - I salivate - but I'm also about ten years too old to wear any of it) you're out of luck above a size eight. Even with more conventional shoes, you're often out of luck above a size ten.

I won't tell you what size I wear in women's shoes. I'll just say that today I dropped into the last remaining local place that's friendly to drag queens and women with really big feet. This is a place where they usually have a number of size fifteens and a broad selection of thirteens and fourteens. This is where I got the thigh-high fetish boots I'll never wear. But even there, the big shoes tend to be either very conventional pumps, or Zsa Zsa shoes - like, with marabou puffs or bright orange platforms or other extremities. No clunky, serviceable, yet cute shoes. In fact, I'm not sure there were any flats in the fourteens at all. And I'm not sure a fourteen would have fit me.

But back to makeup. At the MAC store I actually said to the woman what I wanted, and got it. Okay? So get off my case about being more gutsy with the salespeople. (Of course, I had Judy and Nonelvis for moral support.) I bought a very thick foundation meant to provide heavy coverage, and a powder a shade lighter to set it with.

The makeup works perfectly in one sense, and is a miserable failure in another. It really is the best match for my skin tone I've ever seen, in what's basically a concealer. I can take a little and rub it on the red band across my face and pow - the band is gone, the circles under my eyes are gone, and a little blending makes it nearly impossible to see. I don't even have to do the rest of my face to match - only a little across my forehead. If I do it lightly, and blend it well, I believe it's the closest to invisible makeup I've ever had.

The problem is that it doesn't cover even freshly shaved whiskers. Oh, it will cover anything if you apply enough of it - but at that thickness, it becomes impossible to conceal that something drastic is going on. For one thing, it makes my chin look like it's a different color.

I shall have to return to the drag queen trick of putting lipstick on the razor shadow before applying the foundation. The red cancels the blue, you see. No, really, this works - thank you, Miss Vera, wherever you are - but it's too finicky and elaborate to use except on special occasions and photo sessions.

Ah, well. Fifty percent success isn't bad. I might even risk using minute amounts of this stuff on particularly ugly work days. I will definitely be using this transparent lipstick I got at The Body Shop, which makes my lips a little more shiny without being blatant. Good stuff. When I want to be more blatant, I have another toy - a sort of lip varnish, more glossy, that is almost transparent - it adds a lot of shininess and just the tiniest amount of extra pinkness. Judy recommended it.

I am still a little more nervous about makeup than any of my other quirks - you might say that I feel, with makeup, that my oddities are written all over my face. I experimented with the foundation on Sunday night, and then went to get Marc for some coffee with it still on. I obviously was prepared to go into Davis Square that way, but when I got to Marc's door and found out that his roommates had people over and they were all eating dinner - and when Marc wanted to bring me in to meet them - I panicked. I hissed at him why I couldn't come in, and ran off. Poor Marc. He had no idea why I had reacted so rudely. Furthermore I didn't want to walk to Davis Square alone - apparently I needed his moral support for the trip.

It occurred to me later that if it had been just Marc and his two female roommates, I wouldn't have cared (and they did see me in the makeup, later that night - I eventually returned and we took our walk). It was the presence of two strange males that caused the instant reaction to flee.

I'm going to have to work on that. Perhaps I should go out en femme - like, to the one drag club in the Boston area, which I've never dared go to - as a confidence-building exercise. It certainly wouldn't hurt to trot out the full nine yards once in a while.

Certainly that is what my "licensed aesthetician" thinks. He was as gentle about it as could be, but nonetheless nudged me to just stop worrying about other people and kick up my heels more often. We talked about that, and other things. We had a lot of time to discuss - it took him an hour to do my legs.

No, it wasn't especially painful, and they aren't red and swollen now. They do have the same little red dots all over them, one per follicle, that I get when I shave. Frankly, the wax is looking like a winner. I want smooth legs, and I'd rather do this once a month than shave twice a week. Of course, it also costs $65, so we'll see how often I can justify this frivolity. The eyebrows are only $12 and therefore less of a pain in the pocketbook.

Actually, next time I'm going to have him do the eyebrows first. It was the end of the day for him, he was tired, and he was probably more tired after an hour dealing with my legs - the point being that the eyebrows were far more painful than the legs, and immediately swelled up into a huge red welt across my face, and even bled a tiny amount in one place - none of which happened the last time he did them. So I assume he wasn't doing his best work at that point.

Now that you've heard all the war stories, how is it that I can say today was a boy day? Well ... it just had that feel to it. I certainly didn't feel girly while I was lying down having my leg hairs pulled off, and the conversation - despite its topics - wasn't a very girly conversation; if anything, it was a gay male conversation, which is not the same thing. Aside from the hour I spent getting gussied up for my appointment, I did not feel girly earlier in the day, nor did I especially feel girly walking home from the salon or later.

So beautifying activities do not necessarily mean a girl day. I shall file that information away for future reference.

Now, ask me again tomorrow, when I'm rejoicing over my eyebrows and my nice smooth legs.