Vestlove

I have a love affair with vests. Long vests, short vests, crochet vest, cargo vests that make me look like I should be hosting some wildlife/nature show.

I love them all, and I have for some time, despite the removal efforts of the unofficial queen of my college band. Apparently I looked frumpy in vests.

I like them because they're dressier, but still cooler than a blazer or something.

Anyways, I was reading some old stuff on the What is Gender? forums that I lurk around, and I found this conversation about using vests as binders. I'm excited, though none of mine are really appropriate.

One of the posters makes an excellent point about the nature of vests, a point best taken into account by those vest virgins.

Women's vests are cut for women, while men's are cut for men. I own a couple women's vests, and they are most definitely tailored, however subtly, to accentuate the curves.

Plus, they often come off looking horrendously ugly:
I'm a big fan of men's waistcoats though- the kind of thing worn under a suit. One of these over a band t-shirt with jeans is my favorite outfit right now. The only thing to remember with these is that they often have some sort of cinching mechanism in the back that conveniently hits where a female person's waist would be.
Resist the urge to cinch up your vest (I know, it's hard for me too). It'll only emphasize your natural curves.

I'd like to start a movement creating more unisex jersey vests, like the one seen on this woman:
Only, you know, not girly. I have one that I sewed from two t-shirts (Woo reversible!) and I think it "passes," depending on the right clothing that it's worn with.

Anyways, if all else fails, there's nothing sexier/trashier than a good ol' fashioned biker vest:I like to think fringe is coming back in style.

To Queens

I love gay men. I've noticed that, before college, most of my non-straight friends were gay men, and that I only associated with lesbians when I was interested in them. In college, the token Queen of the marching band took me under his wing, partially because I was horribly awkward and in the closet, and partially because he had the hots for one of my friends.

Of course, I've always been one of the boys. It's just nice having boys who are often a little more in touch with their feminine sides, if for no other reason than that I feel less silly when I'm in touch with mine.

The past few days, I've been surprisingly effeminate- I say this in honor of my roommate, who once told me I was often "effeminate" but never really "feminine." My hips swish, and God help me, I actually like my long hair that I'm usually debating cutting off.

This is always a disturbing feeling, like the first time I got tipsy around boys and started paying entirely too much attention to member of the men's music fraternity. The next day, I freaked out. I thought he was hot. What did that mean for my sexuality?

Then I decided it really didn't matter. Desire, actions, and identity are three separate categories and, while related, don't always have to fall perfectly into place. I know straight girls who kiss girls, straight boys who kiss boys, and gay girls who sit in the laps of boys with questionable sexuality to tell them how pretty they are (guess which one I am!).

I just wish I could have this same attitude towards gender. Sexuality is one thing; with the growing media attention on sexuality, accepting sexualities outside of the Beaver Cleaver norm is becoming easier. But gender is firmly ingrained in our culture, and it's hard to escape.

Still, it shouldn't matter. Some days I feel like a tomboy. Some days I feel like a boy boy. Some days I feel like the world's most effeminate queen. Roll with it.

I think that, at the end of the day, I'd rather come off as effeminate/androgynous than butch. Queens have more fun. Just look at Emmett from QAF:

My Vagina and Me

"I want to have a penis," my best friend recently told me.

"I want to have a strap-on," I replied, since I've spent the past several days obsessively researching the different types, all to no avail. Having used one before, I found the idea of one extremely erotic.

But a real penis? Not so much. No offense to those who own them, but I find them kind of... well, icky. Vaginas are beautiful, and penises are just there.

But that's just me. And that's partly why I think he's trans whereas I'm not.

I've never really had a problem with gender dysphoria, or at least I don't now. I mean, I was miserable throughout puberty, what with the boobs and the strange body hair and the monthly expulsions. But I handle it all pretty well now, I like to think.

And I like my vagina. It looks good, and more, importantly, it feels good. Kate Bornstein commented in Gender Outlaw that hir penis was not a problem per se except for the fact that society told hir to lose it if zhe wanted to become a "real woman." Now, of course, zhe realizes that what's between hir legs is not indicative of gender at all.

I've come a long ways in terms of accepting the girly bits, though discovering sex certainly accelerated the process. The point I've reached that I'm stumbling over now though? It's the cup. *cue dun-dun-dun music*That is, the menstrual cup. I recently purchased one off Ebay, and I'm trying to work up the nerve to try it out. I only tried tampons about six months ago, and while I loved escaping the grossness of pads, tampons tend to wreak dried out havoc on my body.

So, going with the instructions (Size small is for women under twenty five who have not had children), I bought a size small cup. Only now I'm reading from some women that they prefer the large cup due to heavy periods or the fact that they are sexually active.

Now, I understand that my period is fairly light, but I also understand that I'm pretty sexually active, and that my vagina is one flexible area. So I'm torn on whether to go ahead and send it back, or try it out and hope for the best.

Being perfectly honest, it's not a matter of being comfortable so much as a matter of my being a cheap skate. But then, I'm a poor judge of my own vagina. Does my cervix set low? And am I sexually active enough to warrant a large cup? Where's the line there?

My transman friend is suitably freaked out by the prospect of this cup and the idea of wearing it. I understand that. It requires you to be intimate with your body during a really shitty time of the month.

But I also understand that I'm absolutely terrified of TSS and find tampons to be expensive/gross. The fact that I hurt when I try to insert a large tampon makes me think I should go ahead with the small model.

Plus, I wear boxers typically (comfy, modest, and the silk feels very nice), and boxers are not made for pads. So, usually my period (already a sucky painful time filled with strange emotions and an inability to consume dairy) is also marked by the itchy marks left by wearing girly underwear to accomodate the pad.

In a couple weeks when my happy happy time rolls around, I'll be sure to try my cup out, and report on how it goes, and if I can be that up close and personal with my ladybits.

Same Old Cliche

"Most times you can't hear 'em talk,
Other times you can
All the same old cliches,
"Is that a woman or a man?"
And you always seem outnumbered,
You don't dare make a stand"

-"Turn the Page" by Bob Seger

So, when I'm not reading the books I told myself to read first, I've been perusing Nobody Passes edited by Mattilda aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore. It was here that I found an essay called "The Death of 'Genderqueer.'" Needless to say, I was worried. Here comes another Ariel Levy, I thought.

Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. The author of this essay only wants rid of the word Genderqueer because it no longer encompasses what it originally did, being an umbrella term for everyone who plays with gender or doesn't always fit the gender expectations of society.

And I can understand this. However, I can't quite come up for a term to replace it either. For that matter, the author lived in an urban area with a genderqueer community.

I live in podunk. Defying gender norms is a huge deal, particularly at my college. Butch women and effeminate men stick out like sore thumbs. Plus, I only know two "out" transgender individuals, a MTF transsexual and my bff transman. So really, whereas "The Death of 'Genderqueer'" treats the term as a cliche that has been used to death, most people in my school, even those who are LGBT, have probably never heard it.

So for me and my community, genderqueer is still a fairly new term. But this is Arkansas, and things take awhile to catch on around here.

And it may not catch on at all. As much as I love my home state, it's still a strenuous environment in which to be gay, and the key marker of a gay identity is an "unusual" gender affectation or appearance.

It makes me think back to my first semester in college, where I met my Auntie Mame of gay men, Josh. Josh is the queen among queens, in his midriff shirt and booty shorts (to show off his tramp stamp) at marching band practice. We hung out, and I remember being mortified by his huge high heels collection, as well as his drag Halloween costumes. It wasn't something I had encountered before college outside of watching Rocky Horror Picture Show. Of course, a by the end of that year I'm learning to use Ace bandage to bind down my breasts.

So maybe genderqueer needs to be retired, at least in larger communities. The problem is, how do I find a term for people like me? For female bodied people like me especially. Maybe it's a matter of grass being greener on the other side, but a lot of nonstraight women I know are feminine. Finding the more masculine and androgynous women takes some searching, and finding ones who aren't stuck up or hung up on on gender roles is even harder.

Maybe genderqueer isn't yet dead in Arkansas because it hasn't been properly born yet. Well, I'm waiting.

Profile: Davey Havok of AFI

I'd like to begin this with a warning. Remember around 2004? The hordes of girls obsessed with the band AFI, particularly their lead singer?

I, uh, I was in that horde. Still in that horde, actually. I even have the t-shirt for it. So bear with me. I'm talking about an idol here.

Davey Havok has been slowly cutting his hair shorter since 2003, which makes me terribly sad since, when I first fell in love, he looked more like this:The lead singer here was an idol for me in terms of playing with gender. Sure, lots of guys in the rock scene wore eyeliner, but few did it with the elegance and, well, feminine style that Davey Havok did.Not to mention the fact that the man used to walk around Warped Tour with a parasol, or that his hair, when it was long, looked utterly gorgeous.

But lately, Davey Havok has seemed to become more masculine, cutting his hair shorter, letting his eyebrows grow out- cutting down on the fabulous glittery eye shadow:And the masculinity doesn't end there. I purchased AFI's latest album ( Crash Love from September 2009) and, while I loved the music instrumentally and was pleased to hear Havok's voice improving a little since his surgery to remove vocal cord nodules in 2004, I was also disappointed in the lyrics.

Davey Havok has a reputation for writing vague lyrics rich with imagery. And Crash Love doesn't stack up to his previous works in terms of lyrics. His lyrics are more blunt and obvious, less interpretive and, well, pretty.

The little hipster kid inside me wants to say that Havok is trying to assimilate into mainstream culture and is dropping is genderqueer ways to gain popularity. But really, he reached the height of popularity when he was covered in glitter with waist length hair, so I think his change in fashion is just a progression of his own tastes. Besides, if you look at photos of Davey Havok going back, you realize he's the Madonna of his scene, reinventing his look every few years. I mean, the photos I used here are from the past six years alone, and AFI has been together off and on since about 1993. Who knows, maybe five or six years from now Davey Havok will return to his pretty boy ways.

Until then, I have to stay a faithful fan, particularly when he says things like

Q: Actually, a lot of your fans don't know what to make of your sexuality.

A: It is a huge topic. I've found that at times that question and the dubiousness that I seem to exude has given people something -- not simply gossip or whether God is going to smite them for liking our band, but actually they've found strength and become more comfortable with who they are as a person. It's pansexual, that sort of reach. It's a wonderful side effect of what we're doing, to give someone the strength to come out of the closet to their family, or simply present themselves aesthetically in a way they feel happy with, whether or not their friends are going to be allowed to like them anymore. So it's actually a really cool side effect to all the rumors.
-From an interview originally posted on Buzznet

Hooray for T-shirts!

A lot of advice columns aimed at female-bodied people trying to present themselves in a more masculine/androgynous manners discourage t-shirts, considering that they are "unisex."

But t-shirts are like jeans. Everyone wears them, but men and women often wear different styles of shirt. To pick a more masculine t-shirt, focus on these ideas:

• Shape: Boxy, unisex/men's t-shirts are the best, particularly if they're a little loose. Also, v-necks, while hot on biological men, can also be feminizing depending on the cut.
• Logos: A big logo encompassing the entire front of the shirt can draw attention away from your breasts, where a shirt with a logo directly across the chest can draw attention straight to the ladies.
• Color: Like it or not, some colors in our culture are considered more feminine than others. Black, brown, and other dull shades are masculine, where as pink, purple, and various other pastels are considered feminine. However, brightly colored t-shirts can still be seen as masculine depending on:
• What Else You're Wearing: Short shorts, strappy sandles, and a bangle will feminize even the boxiest black t-shirt. I admit, I don't always dress like a hardcore man's man- more like an effeminate gay guy, at times. But a brightly colored t-shirt can still work if it's under an open button up or over a white undershirt, with loose jeans and tennis shoes. Also, wearing nothing with your t-shirt gives it away too, unless your t-shirt is really long.
  

The best way to judge what is more masculine/androgynous is to simply study the opposite sex. Find celebrities whose style you like and try to put your own twist on them. For instance, lately I've become a bit enamoured of Christofer Drew of NeverShoutNever!:

And above all else, dress comfortably! And hope to God that Stacey and Clinton of What Not to Wear don't find you.

Bad Bois

Behold! Gloria Steinem has had a love child- with whoever will have a love child with her. And this lovechild is named Ariel Levy.

I first heard about Levy's book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, in a review in a Bitch magazine from 2004. I remember the review being positive, so I was excited to receive a copy for this past Christmas.

And then I read it. Cue angriness.

I don't have a problem with Levy's main premise. I'm fine with that. Her idea is that women are buying into the “let's objectify women!” raunch culture so long adopted by some men. If you can't beat them, join them.

And while her studies of Girls Gone Wild positively reek of Steinem's “I Was a
Playboy Bunny” article, she makes some excellent points regarding the line between women reclaiming sexual power and women feeling like they're reclaiming sexual power, only to find that they are instead encouraging one another to be objectified. She feels like she veers into the overly conservative, easily angered side of her one sided arguments, but I can forgive her that.

It's her chapter “From Womyn to Bois” that I can't forgive. Okay, in this chapter Levy focuses on the raunch surrounding lesbians who identify as being boi. Of course, most of her examples are of rude, underachieving, immature people who treat feminine women like “hos” and act like all the worst aspects of dumbass teen boys.

I'll credit her that, even, because these folks are definitely out there. Her problem here- like her problem throughout the book- is that she never presents an alternate side, which dramatically weakens her argument.

Plus, she generally treats the concept of a “genderqueer movement” as if it is silly, trying to punch holes in the concept. She explains the genderqueer movement she sees, and then tries to back it up by describing an FTM transsexual and asking why someone would bother with surgery and testosterone if they were trying to destroy the gender binary.

I feel like Levy threw in the word “genderqueer” without any real research or consideration, and I'm pissed. Furthermore, she's taking case by case examples of people's lives and holding them up to represent an entire demographic of people. Did I mention that the transman she used as an example never once identified as genderqueer? Weak.

This chapter was enough to ruin her book for me, I'm afraid. Hell, a paragraph in this chapter was enough. Ariel Levy makes so many excellent points in her book, but completely alienates me and everyone like me, people who otherwise might have supported her.

It's 2010, Ariel. The hardcore 2nd wave feminists are thinning out, and my generation is a hell of a lot more fluid than you're expecting. I'm in line with Kate Bornstein's view on this, really. As long as there are two and only two commonly accepted genders, one will always usurp the power and oppress the other. I'm not looking for Sultana's Dream- I'm looking for a world with one last tag to be held against me.

Who Wants to Be the Lizard King?

My heroes have always been rock stars.

First I wanted to be Billy Ray Cyrus (hush). Not a rock star, per se, but still. Music star. Then I wanted to be a Hanson brother- then a Madden brother as part of Good Charlotte. I wanted to be like Davey Havok of AFI, then Robert Smith of The Cure, then Conor Oberst Bright Eyes.

Never really wanted to be Avril Lavigne- though, looking back, I had a huge crush on her. See, female rock musicians are always heavily sexualized in a way I don't like- God help me, but that quote from Elly Jackson posted yesterday holds a grain of truth, about women's sexuality being used to attract men/fans.

And then there's Patti Smith- probably one of the first women I wanted to emulate. But apparently that's understandable. In Simon Reynolds' book Sex revolts : Gender, Rebellion, and Rock'n'roll, he explains that musicians like Patti Smith actually emulated men, becoming the rock stars in the Mick Jagger sort of tradition.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Aside from occasional whimsies, I'm not a big fan of “women's music.” I don't want to dress like a female musician, and I don't want to be treated like one, because at the end of the day, I'm not entirely sure that I'm a woman.

I'm something completely different. For that matter, I have a low singing voice, so a lot of times I can't keep up with the notes sung by female musicians.

Tegan and Sara, I love you dearly, but those are vocals I can't always handle.

Besides, being a rock star is sort of the ultimate Peter Pan complex. Rock stars aren't men. They're boys. They're living out the “dream,” however dangerous and unsuccessful it may be. They're not having to grow up.

And growing up is really the root of the problem. I look at the options I have to become: Woman or Man. Neither is particularly appealing, and I'd like to draw a nice label outside of the two for me to belong in. Because both of them carry their own expectations and rules that prevent me from being experimental, from being free, and from being myself.

Plus, so often, female-bodied musicians out there claim that they dress in an androgynous way so that their fans focus on their music rather than their appearance. I don't mind the focus on appearance at all. I just want a few more people out in the world to admit that they find androgynous people sexy as hell.

Because we all know they are.

Profile: Elly Jackson of La Roux

I have mixed opinions about Elly Jackson. On the one hand, I like her group's music. I spent all day Sunday with “Bulletproof” stuck in my head. And she wins points for being cute.

Aaaand the positive stops right about there. Bless her heart, but Elly Jackson has a way of sticking her foot in her mouth in interviews. I don't hold it against her too much. I mean, we're around the same age, and God help me if half the things I've said were in print, without my chance to say “Oh shit! Don't say I said that!”

For the most part, it's her attacks on other musicians that irk me. She picks on members of Erasure for their taste in music and calls them, supposedly, “mutton dressed as lamb.” Of course, the singer, to whom this quote was attributed, brushes off the comment saying “it's probably the sort of thing I would have said when I was her age.”

Yes, that's all fine and good, but there comes a point when you can' t keep hiding behind your age as a defense for stupidity and rudeness. Maybe it's my Southern showing, but part of any business is maintaining connections with other popular people in your field, and Jackson keeps taking a machete to these connections. She may think she's being “honest” and establishing herself as not another blonde girly-girl who's all sugar and spice, but really she's coming off as a rude brat.

And all of this culiminates in her June 2009 interview with The Quietus, in which she says:

"[Using a sexuality designed to just appeal to men is] really patronising to women. I know that there's far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top. If you're a real woman you can turn someone on in a plastic bag just by looking at them. That's what a real woman is, when you've got the sex eyes. I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or having relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you twat. It's a funny culture, it's definitely a funny culture. Those women are just insecure, but they'll turn round to me and say 'you're just jealous 'cos you want a tan and you want big boobs, stupid boy-looking girl'. You can't win, they wouldn't believe me for a second."

She makes some lovely points in regards to how women can be sexy without being Eva Longoria. And then she makes that comment about attracting certain men by dressing a certain way. I'll admit, the clothes can send a signal, but women (or just people, for that matter) are never responsible for being beaten up because they are “dressing like that.” Fail, Elly Jackson, fail.

Having said that, I will admit that she wins back a few points with her statement in Starpulse:

"I don't have a sexuality. I don't feel like I'm female or male. I don't belong to the gay or straight society, if there is such a thing. I feel like I'm capable of falling in love with other people. I'm not saying I'm bisexual, I'm just sexual!”

Amen! It's very pomosexual of her, and while the whole “I'm not gay, not straight” thing is being picked up by various female singers these days, her statement that she feels in between genders makes me feel a little better. Now, if she can just keep her foot out of her mouth more often, I'd consider her to be an excellent rolemodel, in addition to an interesting musician.

Bulletproof Music Video

Sources:

The Erasure Jibe

The Quietus

Starpulse

Passing Gay

Dwight of The Office with his official Gaydar machine.

Yesterday, my two best friends came to visit and spend the day bumming around Fayetteville, spending money on more books and candy than we probably needed.
While in Romancing the Stone, one of my friends nudged me and pointed out two (hot) guys who were semi-obviously a couple. We proceeded to see them throughout the day at the mall, the encounters culminating into a point where we passed each other, and I turned around to watch them leave, and one of them turned around to look at us in much the same way. We grinned a little, and his boyfriend nudged him back into walking forward, and then they were gone. My friend pointed out that he probably thought we were a couple.

How did I know these guys were gay? Granted, they walked together everywhere, but so did a lot of guys. Other than that, there was nothing- except maybe the way they dressed (very neatly), or the way one of them, the more obvious of the pair, walked (with his hips) and talked (with his hands).

However, I wouldn't consider these sexuality cues so much as gender cues. This man was not presenting himself as being particularly masculine the way so many men in the South do. Of course, my friend's proposed assumption, that the guy thought we were together, followed much the same guidelines of gender cues. Wilting Southern belles we are not.

The thing is, so much of what I read about gender identity makes a huge deal about taking gender identity and sexuality and putting a vast canyon between them. I can understand the point, to differentiate between who you are and who you are attracted to, but you can't deny that in the queer community, gender identity and sexuality blur together a bit.

I think that, as members of the GLBT community make more strides towards legal equality, they also assimilate into straight, vanilla culture, as if to say “Look, we're here, we're queer, and we're just like you!”
There's a quote, I'm having trouble finding it, that says something along the lines that “Gays want you to think that we're just like you, only the sex is different. Actually, we are nothing like you; only the sex is the same.” And I can see this. Few things considered to be gay/lesbian sex are exclusively practiced by gay people.

I know lesbians who like straight girls, who love finding the most feminine, most straight laced coughs girls and “converting” them. They've given me shit for the girls that I like, and God help me if they found me looking at the boys I, on occasion, like. But I'm not queer because I like straight, normal girls. I'm queer because I like other people who are queer, and I wish people would stop drawing their black and white lines in my happy gray area.

Also, reading this book, which will hopefully help me deal with my issues of assimilation and such.

Passing for the Generations

As I said in my first post, I rarely pass as male. Besides the way my voice climbs in pitch when I get emotional (on a level on par with Elliott from Scrubs), I also have long hair which, no matter how much I tie it back, is still obviously long hair. However, I had a “passing incident” recently with the secretary of our music department.
Ms. A is not known for her intelligence, though she can be a remarkably sweet lady. Well, sometimes. On occasion. But it's disconcerting to see her happy at work. Regardless, she was actually conversational when I went to the music office to permanently borrow duct tape. The duct tape was for a ghetto tuba pad, and the only color of tape my roommate and I own is hot pink. When I explained to Ms. A that I didn't think hot pink duct tape would look professional on my tuba, she agreed, though pink duct tape would look “cute on a girl's tuba.”

I laughed it off, “It sure would,” and promptly went to laugh about it to my tuba professor. He and Ms. A have a love/hate/please-make-the-copier-work relationship, and he thought it was hilarious that she thought I was a guy.

In fact, most people who have passed me off as male have been older, whereas younger people just assume I'm a lesbian, a tomboy, or one of those strange girls from the gamer floor of our dorm (my straight, soon-to-be-married RA is so much more masculine than I am). Is this because our generation has a broader view of gender representation? I don't have the quote, but I believe in Sarah Waters' Tipping Velvet, one of the characters remarks that a woman can easily pass for a man if she wears pants, because only men wear pants of course. That doesn't hold water today, but there are still certain clothing items that are considered appropriate for one gender- such as a tie. I feel like middle aged people still associate the tie as a purely male clothing accessory. However, I grew up in the shudders Avril Lavigne generation, where women can wear ties all the time.

I think that, as each generation has a wider range of gender-appropriate clothing, the ability to “pass” for transgendered people becomes harder. So, after awhile, is passing even worth it? Because the acceptance of nontraditional clothing in terms of gender should also represent a broader scope of gender in the minds of younger generations anyways. This is a generation of straight girls that can identify as straight but still really, really like to kiss/make out with other girls. Hell, thanks to Katy Perry, they have their anthem. Is this going to be a generation where it's okay for me to not completely pass one way or the other?