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The Evolution
of Gloria – Part II
Our chairman’s journey continues.
Back in the bedroom, with his t-shirt off once more, the bra
went back on. This time, however, fear was tempered with flat out joy. George
still trembled as he padded out the bra, but there was now anticipation to see
and feel the rightness he had felt for just a moment before. There was a moment,
as George thought about the girls in his class in school, who he knew were also
wearing their bra that day.
George had very acute hearing and had, in school, heard some
of the girls talking about learning to wear bras themselves. He had heard, too,
about some girls padding their bras. At that moment, it was as if he secretly
was one of them, and it was a good feeling. A smile crossed his face as he
thought that now he had a "girl’s chest" to go with his girl’s
legs. It may sound silly, but there was a sense of pride as George put his
t-shirt on over the bra and saw that simple shirt filled out like never before.
George felt pretty again, and it was wonderful. George went
about his chores happily, and little by little new sensations and thoughts came
to him. His bra and his breasts were not just something he was wearing. George
realized as he worked that they felt like they were, instead, a part of him, a
very real and very right part of him. He began to sense a feeling of
completeness he had never felt before. Denial and fear were not there, except as
memories.
Feeling so good was intoxicating. Back in the bedroom, George
took off his shoes, socks, and pants and a pair of Ma’s stockings went onto
his legs with rubber bands to hold them up. Sitting on the edge of the bed,
George could look down his body now and see his breasts filling out his t-shirt,
and then his "girl’s legs" wrapped in the beautiful stockings that
belonged on them. Once more he was like many of the girls in his class who were
also now wearing stockings at times. His pants and shoes went back on as he did
more chores.
For George it was a day of wonderful discovery to feel as
good as he did. Walking and working with the stockings under his pants, however,
proved that rubber bands were not up to the task of holding his stockings in
place. The bedroom called once more for a solution to the problem. Though he had
never worn the, George knew there were two solutions to holding up his
stockings. One solution was a girdle, and the other was a garter belt. Neither,
however, was found in the dresser, and the realization of that was very
disappointing.
A search began. Tucked away in a storage chest, George found
the answer to his prayer. Ma had packed away a brief-type panty girdle. It was a
flowered print more like a pair of brief-type pants, but it did have places for
garter hooks to be put in. Finding garter hooks became the challenge. The search
became frantic, but as with all else that day that seemed so right, George did
find four garter hooks. George stripped down so all he was wearing was his bra.
Putting on the panty girdle was a whole new situation since George had never
worn panties or a girdle before. The snugness of the panty girdle was a new
feeling. George had never worn anything this tight, and there was some
discomfort, at first. But George knew that if a girl could wear the girdle, then
so could he. Trial and error, and some needed adjustments solved the discomfort
problems. That made the look and fell of the panty girdle even more exciting, as
with it in place, he knew he had even more made his body look and feel like a
real girl. And that was a growing, incredible sensation.
George was starting to know that now he wasn’t just wanting
to feel pretty by wearing something. Now he was wanting to not just wear
something like a girl, but rather wear things as a girl. That was a new shock to
comprehend, but one that at the moment only added to the completeness George was
feeling. Learning to fasten garter hooks became, to George, just one more thing
he needed to learn as a girl, and learn, he did.
Standing back away form the dresser mirror so he could see
his full image, George, for the fist time, saw the complete body of a girl in
the reflection. Except for the short, boyish hair, George was physically gone.
Though, in ways, George had sensed it before that moment, the reality of it was
that George and I actually met for the fist time that day. We were both scared
to death to face the fact that I was born as a girl, as part of George. Our mind
went racing to bring sense to everything that was happening. But there was no
sense to it. George wanted to end things right then, but I could not let him do
that.
I shoved George’s clothes and shoes under the bed, so I
didn’t have to face seeing them. I was "the girl" in the mirror.
George had never in his life felt as good, and as alive, as I did right then. I
marveled at the image of my new body. (to be continued)
n
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De-Lovely: A Movie
Meditation
by Diane S. Frank
We settle down as man and wife
To solve the riddle called "married life,"
It’s delightful, it’s delicious it’s de-lovely.
We’re on the crest, we have no cares,
We’re just a couple of honey bears
It’s delightful, it’s delicious it’s de-lovely.
And then come the famous two questions that wives ask when
they belatedly learn that their husband is a crossdresser:
- Does he really want to have sex with men?
- Does he really want to be a woman?
The second of these two questions was addressed by the
Jessica Lange vehicle "Normal" (Not to be confused with the Amy Bloom
book by the same name). In Normal, after much grief Jessica Lange’s character
chooses to stand by her man, er woman as love triumphs over all.
"De-Lovely", the movie/musical biography of Cole
Porter plays a similar tune. Linda Thompson, a divorcé in 1920’s Paris had,
it turns out, no illusions about her husband to be, the soon to be famous
composer of popular song and ballad, Cole Porter. Cole Porter’s affairs with
men were well known in the Gay Paree of the day. In these days of liberation
Linda’s choice may seem odd. We learn she left an abusive marriage, and chose
an apparently near sexless marriage, a marriage in which her husband was allowed
his affairs with men so long as he was discreet about it. It is a decision that
we might marvel about today, except for the fact that women seem to continue to
make this sort of choice.
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Cole Porter
Linda Thompson
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According to both Helen Boyd ("My Husband Betty")
and Amy Bloom, many crossdresser’s wives do not have sexually fulfilling
marriages. Yet, after all, women chose to remain married crossdressing husbands
who do not fulfill them in the bedroom. How different is it when a husband’s
eros is inaccessible in some fantasy of personal femininity, vs actually having
sex outside a marriage with a woman or a man? Infidelity of all sorts motivates
our literature, and statistics claim it happens all the time. To what extent do
we or can we separate the hot sweaty bit of love tied up with sexuality, and the
love that reflects the genuine and maybe eternal appreciation for and connection
and joining with another soul?
As usual I can’t help
making another connection. We’ve all seen it, a woman leaving a seemingly good
marriage and setting off on her own in late life, leaving a confused, stunned
and staggered ex-husband coping with the mundane chores of daily life he used to
take for granted. Jane Gross wrote about it in the July 22nd issue of the New
York Times
This is perhaps where I take a more optimistic note than you
might expect. Couples that face the issue of crossdressing in their marriage
cannot take their marriage for granted. Regardless of whether it is an issue of
no great importance, with easy acceptance or whether it is a perfect storm of a
crisis, I cannot help thinking that anyone who gets to the other side will
never, ever take their relationship for granted, no matter what means they use
to work out their issues.
In
"De-Lovely", Linda does leave Cole for a while…when his partying
makes her feel taken for granted. That situation didn’t last, and they were
reunited. Linda found her satisfaction in being Porter’s muse, his manager,
his biggest fan and promoter. She arranged the circumstances that led to his
first Broadway show and his moves in and out of Hollywood. She gave him the
spine to survive his crippling horseback riding injuries. She suffered a
miscarriage as well. And two and a half hankies later, and after some
wonderfully executed renditions of Porter’s best tunes by some suprising cameo
performers (Elvis Costello sings "Let’s Misbehave" for example) at
the end, the movie shows Cole and Linda reunited in some after life, as he plays
his haunting ballad about of love’s insecurity, "In the still of the
night".
In the still of the Night
As I gaze from my window
At the moon in its flight,
My thoughts all stray to you.
In the still of the night,
While the world is in slumber,
Oh, the times without number,
Darling, when I say to you,
"Do you love me as I love you?
Are you my life-to-be, my dream come true?
Or will this dream of mine
Fade out of sight
Like the moon
Growing dim
On the rim
Of the hill
In the chill,
Still
Of the night?
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[Urban Hip]
Brini Maxwell
In my continuing quest to provide you only the finest in entertainment,
I submit the following for your review. – Elaine
The Brini Maxwell Show is being seen now on The Style Network. Check you
local listing for air times.
http://www.stylenetwork.com/Shows/BriniMaxwell/
It's a mix of Donna Reed and Martha Stewart with a whole lot of retro-camp
tossed in. Check out her video by following the above link. Fashion, style and
humor. It's worth watching. Oh, she's not a natural blond? Well she’s
something better, she’s one of us!
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[American Modern]
Shining A Light on
Ghostlight
Our own classical dance diva, Diane S. Frank, reviews the
movie - Ghostlight (2003): A glimpse into the turbulent world of
legendary dancer/choreographer Martha Graham.
Martha Graham was a small, birdlike woman who was also a
giant in the 20th world of modern dance. She invented a movement
vocabulary unlike that of classical ballet, and created dances that delved into
the most tortured and ecstatic convolutions of the human psyche.
Martha Graham
Ghostlight is a self
described homage to idea of Martha Graham. It is part biography, part fantasy
and a lot of dance about Martha Graham. It is a movie for dance aficionados, and
the night I attended the showing at the Cleveland Art Museum there were only two
handfuls of people watching, of who five I knew were dancers or avid patrons.
Martha Graham, from her regal pronouncements, her characteristic hairstyle, her
lithe body and heavily theatrical clothing is played with élan and cunning by
Richard Move a 6’4" drag queen. Why not use a giant to portray someone
small who was so much larger than life? Perhaps it takes a giant man to play a
giant of a woman.
Richard Move as Martha Graham
Or perhaps it shows how legends can be reduced to the tropes
of drag. "Martha", when being interviewed is told that she is often
portrayed by men. "Why not?" she replies, "some women have been
impersonating women for centuries". If the nod to the drag performance had
been limited to this bit, I’d have found the movie more satisfying. However
the "Wigstock" refugees who notice Martha in her limo outside of
Central Park are an unnecessary and self-indulgent reference to the drag culture
from which Move emerged. The movie also follows a drag convention, not seen in
live shows much anymore, but honored overall: at the end of the show, the wig
comes off to make sure you know that the player was really a man in disguise.
This convention was honored in the rock musical "Hedwig and the Angry
Inch", and it is honored in "Ghostlight." In the closing credits
an audition scene is shown where the actor, all dyed spikey hair, fresh face and
very plucked eyebrows reads the part en homme, shocking the other actors with
the verisimilitude of mannerism and voice from an image totally at odds with
them. This is a conceit, as the drag performer is in fact one of the authors and
producers of the film.
But what of the dance you may ask? And what of the acting?
The acting sad to say was wooden. Lines were read and people were placed in sets…but
only Martha and her tipsy Irish maid seemed to inhabit their characters. But the
dance, ah the dance. The cast of dancers, heavily drawn from the current Martha
Graham company, and clearly relishing the attention paid to the fanatic quality
of their devotion danced wonderfully. The closing montage that summarizes a
whole dance is tightly shot, well edited, in context and a thoroughly convincing
demonstration of the genius of Graham, leaving no doubt that her movement
created drama and theatre in a way totally inaccessible to the classic ballet,
yet totally riveting to the audience. And yes, the man playing Martha danced
well too, no stunt double involved here. A pleasant surprise, as so much homage
and parody never rises to the level of art, but stays on the plane of burlesque.
You likely won’t get to see this film in theatres. Perhaps
Cleveland Cinematheque will re-run it. Perhaps it will come out on video tape or
DVD. And perhaps one rainy afternoon or snowy evening you’ll remember this
review, watch the film and see a little bit of unexpected magic.
For more information about "Ghostlight" see http://www.mannic.com/s_martha.html.
If you have high speed internet, there is a very good trailer.
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[Viewpoint]
Crossdressing Comedies
May 2, 2004 - In this column the Orlando Sentinel movie critic, Jay
Boyar, suggests "gender-bending films that go for the laughs continue to
fascinate us" - Elaine
Check out the top two spots on the American Film Institute's
list of the best-ever comedies and you'll find they have something in common.
No. 1, "Some Like It Hot," and No. 2, "Tootsie," are both
films about cross-dressers. Coincidence? Maybe, girlfriend.
Some Like It Hot
Curtis & Lemmon as Daphne &
Josephine |
Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie" |
But Hollywood's
continuing fascination with drag comedies -- including the recent "Connie
and Carla" and the upcoming "White Chicks" -- suggests there's
something else going on.
A Fine Line
Comedy may be a matter of taste, but some form of drag seems
to tickle almost everyone's funny bone.
"There is the great divide between males and
females," says Michael Freeny, a sex therapist of 25 years' experience who
practices in Florida. The comedy comes, he says, in how drag performers
"either can or cannot carry off" the impersonation.
One of the great show-biz ironies is that even homophobic
types often get a kick out of drag. That's especially true if the female
impersonation is not so precise that it's sexy and, therefore, potentially
threatening.
"If you've ever been to a transvestite show," says
Freeny, "the most beautiful women you've ever seen aren't."
Aren't women, that is. "And that is very distressing to
homophobic men," he says.
Safe not Sexual
Not distressing, however, are the likes of Milton Berle,
America's Uncle Miltie in the early days of television. Berle had only to put on
a dress and some lipstick to elicit belly laughs from the vast American public.
More recently,
Australia's Barry Humphries, as the flamboyant Dame Edna Everage, has been
enjoyed by all sorts of people. So have the occasional drag sketches on
England's "Monty Python's Flying Circus," Canada's "The Kids in
the Hall" and our home-grown "Saturday Night Live."
"There is no (sexual) attraction level there," says
Donald F. Reuter, author of "Fabulous! A Loving, Luscious, and Lighthearted
Look at Film from the Gay Perspective." "The sexuality is taken out of
it completely."
Women As Men
"Connie and Carla" is different from most drag
comedies because the main "drag" performers are actually women.
Played by Nia Vardalos ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding")
and Toni Collette ("Muriel's Wedding"), Connie and Carla are a
dinner-theater singing duo from Chicago who find themselves on the run from
mobsters. They end up in the Los Angeles area -- specifically, in heavily gay
West Hollywood -- where they masquerade as female impersonators.
Because they're actually women, Connie and Carla are
extremely good at, so to speak, impersonating women. They easily land jobs
singing at a gay bar and quickly become a sensation.
Although our heroines are not, technically speaking, female
impersonators, the movie taps into drag culture and features several men in
female garb. But whether it's men impersonating women or women impersonating men
impersonating women, the source of the humor is often the same.
Through the Years
If the traditional drag image has been
relatively consistent, gender-bender film comedies have changed through the
years.
"It's interesting because you can trace so much of our
culture -- not just gay culture but just culture in general -- through these
movies," says Reuter.
Cary Grant appeared stiff and uncomfortable when he donned a
skirt and a horsehair wig in "I Was a Male War Bride," a 1949 comedy
whose title tells you pretty much all you need to know.
Not so the stars of
"La Cage aux Folles," the 1978 French hit about a drag performer and
his partner. It was popular enough internationally to spawn two sequels and a
1996 American adaptation, "The Birdcage," which features Nathan Lane
as the frock-wearing counterpart to Robin Williams' more conventionally dressed
character.
A few years earlier, however, Williams had put on the dress
for "Mrs. Doubtfire" of 1993.
Coming up in June is "White Chicks," in which
African-American brothers Marlon and Shawn Wayans play undercover agents who
infiltrate the debutante world as white women.
Lessons Learned
If the classics "Some Like It Hot" (1959) and
"Tootsie" (1982) deserve their spots atop the AFI list that may be
partly because they manage to be hilarious while saying something significant
about gender differences.
"Most movies with drag as some part of the plot -- a
major plot or a subplot -- they're probably not trying that hard to get anything
out of it except a cheap laugh," says Reuter.
But in "Tootsie," the cross-dressing Dustin Hoffman
learns essentially the same lesson that his brothers-in-skirts, Jack Lemmon and
Tony Curtis, learn, with a little help from Marilyn Monroe, in "Some Like
It Hot."
After walking a mile in the shoes (especially the high heels)
of women, and after suffering a series of casual indignities at the hands of
thoughtless men, our heroes learn to treat the other gender with respect.
"That's the type of movie that works on many, many
levels," Reuter says. "It's about getting respect for who you are and
not the way you look."
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Summer Meeting Reminders
July - No meeting
August - The annual cookout at
Gloria and Kathleen’s home. (email Gloria or Kathleen for details and
directions)
September - (tentative)
Sister Bernadette Returns!
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Upcoming
Meetings
September- We
start up again
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Publication
Notice and
Club Policies
This
newsletter is
copyright
1998-2004 by
The Alpha
Omega Society. All
rights
reserved.
Articles and
information
contained in
this
newsletter may
NOT be without
advance
permission
from the
individual
author. Write
to editor@aosoc.org
in order to
contact the
author. When
permission is
granted, a
copy of the
issue
containing the
reprinted
material must
be sent to
Alpha Omega
within two
months after
the material
is published
and proper
credit is
given to
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source.
The
opinions or
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contained in
this
newsletter are
those of the
authors and do
not
necessarily
reflect the
views of Alpha
Omega.
Contributions
of articles
are welcomed,
but may be
altered in the
editing
process, with
the author’s
intent
retained, or
may be
rejected,
whether
solicited or
not.
Absolutely no
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explicit
material may
be accepted or
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Alpha Omega
is a
non-profit
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group for
heterosexual
crossdressers
and their
wives or
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Also, members
from related
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helping
professionals,
and approved
guests are
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Meetings
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unless a
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Send all
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