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Newsletter
Author |
NOVEMBER 2007
CONTENTS
[Upfront] The Month
(Just click on the bracketed title [xxxxx] above to go directly to an article.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Upfront] THE MONTH On Community: Building walls or building bridges - which makes more sense to you? Diane Frank shares her un-Halloween Halloween night and reviews Julia Serrano's book, "Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity." Inner View: Buddhist master, Achaan Naeb, on pain versus happiness. Art: Benjamin Messick: draftsman, printmaker, painter, and honored WWI veteran. Gloria Fenton: The 60s and a form fitting blue plaid dress. In the News: The strange allure of crossdressers. Last Laugh: Halloween is only 11 months away! Aquadisiac's drag tips for the testosteronially-inclined (excerpted and PG-ified). Elaine - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Community] HEARD ON THE STREET From the August 2007 TransOhio.org newsletter: Building Bridges, Building Community It's not hard to hide the fact that some people and groups just don't get along. It's human nature right? Par for the course? It just is. And there is nothing wrong with that. Even more so, it's okay for individuals and groups to not always agree with one another. Again, it's just the way it is. And really, if everybody had the same ideas and same opinions, what would drive people to think outside the box? If groups had all of the same members, how could you tell them apart? If we were all the same, would there be any reason to organize? What would happen to our individuality? There are several things that I find amazing about the GLBTQI community as a whole. When I put "intentional blinders" on and look only at the Transgender and Intersex community, the awe that I have is tenfold. Sometimes I'm not sure where to start. Many groups (including crossdressers, intersexed and transsexual) have old histories between one another and have unfortunately had exchanges that hurt community building rather then help it. It happens. Human nature, remember? But the most important thing here is to have the strength to take a breath, a step back and realize that we’re all in this together. Our individuality is what brings strength to our groups. It brings individual experiences that are priceless— and these are the experiences, the individuals and the strengths that are needed to create change in our local and national communities. Our voices are louder if we work together. It's about teamwork and networking--including, compromise. If we work together, we will achieve more, create change and our voices will be heard.
"The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say 'I'. And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say 'I'. They don't think 'I'. They think 'we'; they think 'team'. They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but 'we' gets the credit.... This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Frank Talk] OUT & ABOUT By Diane Frank October is generally a highly anticipated month for people in this neck of the woods. Cleveland seems to have more scare shows, haunted houses and Halloween mania than you’d expect from a community so into "Sears brown suits" and "the full Cleveland." Or, maybe you would expect it--a festival of release of the unconscious from all that middle-American stolidity and stoicism. Certainly, if you watch the boards and the chat rooms you’ll see plenty of discussion about releasing the inner-monsters, the terrifying sexy school girl, the Lovecraftian sexy nurse, the grand guignol of the sexy devil or angel. Did I forget to mention that it’s important to be sexy? Forgive me, but apparently a coup was staged and the sin of lust has taken over all the monsters and circles of the damned so that Halloween has become the holiday for the monsters of libido. My October was a let-down by those standards. I enjoyed attending a fashion show for wearable art where an elderly friend of mine had some clothes on the runway. I found a wonderful dusty rose Thai-silk scarf with faint leaf imprint in the boutiques that is probably too much a work of art to wear. Everything else was either too expensive or too small, generally both. I received compliments during the day on my skirt, my shawl, and my necklace (crafted by my elderly friend). I had a wonderful lunch with a table full of women I know from my book club, and then discovered how hard it is to use a digital camera at a fashion show. It just wouldn’t take the picture I wanted. For people who will be attending the next AO meeting, I’ll share the pictures so you see just how few good shots I got, despite being mere feet from the runway. Another “scary” event during October was attending a presentation by Equality Now at a UCC church on the far east side of Cleveland. The general message is that there is an organization working to reverse the ban on gay marriage, raise consciousness and to provide legal protection for those of us whose gender expression isn’t typical. However, given the recent and continuing problems with HRC and ENDA (and if you don’t know what this is about, just Google it), I think I’ll wait a bit before looking at how AO might get involved at an educational level with this group. My greatest anxiety this Halloween was caused by my having a party to go to--only it wasn’t a costume or Halloween party of any kind. A dear friend was retiring and invited us celebrate with her on the 31st. So I managed to die a thousand deaths imagining that someone would come up to me and say, “great costume, what party are you going to/coming from?” Then I’d have to do this thing I love so much in the world--try to explain this to them. And, maybe they’d get it and maybe they wouldn’t. I could carry the story along quite a ways, imagining all the dreadful consequences of being seen in such a costume. So of course, not a word was said at the party. Someone liked the scarf I was wearing. What an anti-climax. All those nightmares, wasted! Whipping Girl by Julia Serrano (Warning: The language of this discussion is heavily influenced by post-modern, deconstructionist, feminist and gender-chatter/gender theory vocabulary. It also refers to well known arguments and disagreements in theory and practice. I’m not talking the time to explain them all, and you may be allergic to this kind of discussion. If so, please skip to the next interesting article.) The book, Whipping Girl by Julia Serrano presents an idiosyncratic transsexual view of the problem of gender and transness. I could write a book about things I object to in the text, but I could also write a book about what I regard as useful and progressive about it. Perhaps my greatest objection is that Serrano buys into Jacob Hale’s view of non-trans people writing and thinking about trans issues: Approach your topic with a sense of humility: you are not the experts about transsexuals, transsexuality, transsexualism, or trans__. Transsexuals are. I object to this ethnocentrism. My experience is that, entirely as expected, there is the normal variation of self-awareness, thoughtfulness and ability to express oneself in ways that are intelligible to other people in trans people of various sorts as there is in the rest of humanity. Transsexuals and/or t* people of any stripe simply cannot be relied on to be experts about their own condition. They may not even have the self-awareness to be experts on themselves. Given Serrano’s self-described long journey to the conclusion that she is a woman and not a crossdresser or a queer-bi-boy, one would think that this would be obvious. Serrano took a long time to figure out who she is now, so at any of her earlier stages of development her “expert” opinion of herself would be wrong by the light of her future (and only presumed expert) self-knowledge. Then there is the problem of hermeticism and insularity that plague groups claiming that no one else can know or understand them, much less be an expert in them. In the end this is merely another device to silence voices that disagree. Now if there were any unanimity among any of the various splinters of t-ness that contradicted the normative view of things there might be a moment in time where Hale’s edict could have some currency. But, when groups of trans people (those lead by Ann Lawrence, Willow Arune, and an androphylic subset of transkids) embrace the sexualization of t-ness proclaimed by Blanchard and Bailey, it is hard to dismiss the association of sexuality out of hand. (Serrano does come up with a convincing counter argument, vide infra). Still, I’d trust the academic investigations of t-ness done by the Netherlands researchers, Louis Gooren and Peggy Cohen-Kettenis not because I always agree with them, but because the careful, scholarly, open-minded approach they take seems to me to be solidly based in sound scientific and ethical practice. Neither, to my knowledge, are trans of any kind themselves. While Whipping Girl avoids most of the usual pitfalls of transsexual writing--the lurid narrative dump that seems to get these things published--it still manages to fall into one them. Serrano can’t help talking about herself and her own experience. When we’re discussing great issues of self and sex and gender, this intrusion of the author’s personal experience is annoying, grating and often misleading. But once you get past all these tailings, there is a true nugget worth the mining. A huge, shared problem across the MtF spectrum is re-projected, reinforced cultural contempt for femininity. I’m not going to discuss the vocabulary that Serrano creates to describe this (cis-sexuality, cis-sexism, effemimania). Nor will I repeat her discussion of the problems feminism has with femininity. I think her overall theme gets it right: those traits considered feminine are reviled in people born and assigned male, and are framed in a negative, oppressive way for those born female. Serrano thus provides a strong line of exploration of why MtF transness is sexualized and FtM isn’t: women and femininity are always sexualized by the dominant, heterosexist, male-centered cultural paradigm. Sexualizing and demonizing femininity in those born male is a natural out-growth of this. I can’t recommend Whipping Girl to everyone. I’ve experienced enough anti-intellectualism within various t-communities to know that many would not be able read very far into the book. This book is for people with a taste for gender theory and also the responsibility to represent our communities in the outside world. In other words, people like me. I don’t expect to find well-thumbed, heavily underlined, sticky-noted and tagged copies resting by people’s computers or make-up mirrors. But just as “Freudian” thinking, however incorrect has trickled down into common parlance, so too I think will some of Seranno’s ideas. So the question is, do you want to get them second hand or give a brave writer and thinker her due and read her book? That, my dear reader, is up to you. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Inner View] CHANGING POSITIONS When we realize that we are forced to change positions because of pain, we should question further to find out if there are other reasons. If the answer is that we change because we want to be comfortable, this is incorrect. It is incorrect because it is a distortion of happiness. The correct answer is that we change in order to "cure" the pain. We do not change to acquire happiness. The wrong answer comes from misunderstanding, and if we do not have the right comprehension when we change positions, defilements can and will spring up. Changing positions to "cure" pain indicates that we have to remedy the situation at all times. We should not misjudge and think that the reason is to attain happiness, since the curing of pain all the time is the same as having to take medicines constantly. It is like nursing a continuous sickness. Thus, we should not look upon nursing sickness and curing pain as being happiness at all. --Buddhist master, Achaan Naeb: from Living Dharma - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -   Female Impersonator, 1930s Benjamin Messick (American, 1891-1981) casein on paper - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Memoir] SANDY SEEING ME IN HER CLOTHES (Part I) By Gloria Fenton The first item of Sandy’s clothing that she ever saw me wear was her favorite blue plaid dress. It happened after a time that Sandy and I made love to each other. As Sandy was putting her clothes back on, I summoned my courage and asked her if she would, for a moment, let me wear her dress in front of her. I had been waiting for a chance to have Sandy see me wear something of hers, and right then seemed the perfect time. I could tell Sandy wasn’t thrilled about letting me do it, but after I pleaded a bit, she agreed to let me put on her dress. It just happened to be that Sandy had chosen to wear her blue plaid dress that day. And by virtue of that, it became the very first dress of Sandy’s that I took off of her, as I undressed Sandy for the first time. An irony of the moment was that Sandy’s blue plaid dress was also the very first dress of Sandy’s that I wore after Sandy let me start wearing her clothes, and Sandy knew that. As I did not hide from Sandy what things of hers that I wore, Sandy was also aware, as I undressed her, that I had also worn more than just her dress before. I might not have been in the exact pantyhose, bra, and panties that Sandy had on that day, but Sandy knew I had been in others just like them. Sandy also knew I had worn the shoes she had on, and her girdle. In fact, as it worked out, Sandy had let me wear her intimate clothing several times before I actually got to see and feel her intimate things on her. I had mentioned to Sandy a couple of times, as I told her what I wore of hers that I did hope for a time I could wear something of hers in front of her. So, as I say, that particular moment seemed as good a time as any to do the deed. And so, as Sandy sat on the edge of the bed we had made love on, Sandy saw me for the first time put on a piece of her clothing. The only thing I had on under Sandy’s dress was my men’s briefs. Every other time I had worn Sandy’s blue plaid dress; I had been dressed in Sandy’s intimate clothing just as she was right then. I had figured, though, that asking to wear more than just her dress in front of Sandy the first time was not a good idea. Sandy was letting me wear her clothes, her shoes, her make up, her jewelry, and her accessories, and I did not want Sandy to stop letting me do those things. I saw Sandy watch me as I put on her dress, and once I did have it on I asked Sandy to zip it up for me. I stood with my back to her as Sandy did zip up her favorite dress on me. Even without Sandy’s intimate clothing under the dress, I knew that Sandy would see that her dress fit me well, though not as well as I knew it did with everything else on me; and so, as I turned and walked around a bit, Sandy got to see me in something of hers for the first time. Sandy’s favorite dress had also, from my wearing it, become my favorite dress, and I did enjoy wearing it. As I watched Sandy watching me, I had no doubt that Sandy was checking out how her dress fit me and moved on my body as I turned and modeled it for her. Not wanting to push my luck, after only a few moments, I sat down on the edge of the bed next to Sandy, took her hands in mine, and began thanking Sandy for letting me wear her dress. I saw Sandy look down at our hands, and for a moment I did too. It hit me as I did look down that Sandy wasn’t really looking at our hands, but rather noticing how high the hem of her dress had slid up my thighs as I sat there. Unlike any other dress Sandy had, the hem of her blue plaid dress could go up quite high on her thighs, and a lot higher than I liked when she was around other guys, unless she was very careful about it. Sandy and I had already had a discussion or two about how high Sandy could get the hem of her blue plaid dress unless she was careful about it around other guys. From wearing the blue plaid dress myself, and being dressed just like Sandy under it, I had learned all about how high I could get the hemline up my stockinged legs unless I was also very careful. I had not been thinking about that though as I sat down on the bed next to Sandy, and the hem had gone up quite high on my thighs. I was well aware then that Sandy had noticed that and that her dress did fit me very well on the rest of my body. Thanking Sandy one last time, I stood up and turned around and asked Sandy to unzip my dress. I realized after I said it, that I had referred to Sandy’s favorite dress as my dress. Sandy didn’t say anything, though, and she did unzip the dress. Taking the dress off, I handed it back to Sandy so she could put it on while I put my men’s clothes back on. Sandy hadn’t really said a word while I was in her dress, so as I dressed I asked Sandy if she was okay with what had happened. I didn’t want or need for Sandy to be upset with me. Still sitting on the edge of the bed holding her dress, Sandy looked right at me and said, “You looked too good in my dress.” Believe me, I was very glad she had not seen me in more than just her dress, or she probably would have said a lot more. I tried to laugh off the tension by assuring Sandy that I hadn’t looked that good, and assured her that I had not asked to wear her dress to upset her. My clothes were back on, as Sandy put her dress back on, and I zipped it up for her. I held and kissed Sandy and told her how much I loved her. Sandy smiled and told me she loved me, too. I went and sat on the living room couch, as Sandy straightened out the bed so nobody could suspect we had made love to each other on it. As I sat there, I wasn’t sure just what would happen next, or for that matter, in the future. I had not planned on our making love that day, or my undressing Sandy for the first time. I had also not planned for Sandy to see me in her dress, or tell me I looked good in it. All those things had just happened. I knew that whatever would happen, would all be up to Sandy. What fears I did feel, I knew were best kept to myself. Within minutes though my fears began to fade as Sandy came and cuddled next to me on the couch and began talking as if nothing had happened. Nobody seeing us would have had a clue that we had made love to each other and that Sandy had seen me wearing her favorite dress. I did notice, however, that Sandy was very careful to keep her hemline tugged down the rest of the day. But every time I saw Sandy tug her hemline down, I couldn’t help but remember Sandy telling me I had looked too good in her dress, and that I had the one time stupidly called her dress, my dress. As I did think to myself about Sandy’s comment, I did sense one thing though. Sandy had not made her comment in anger. Sandy had made her comment more as just a statement of what she saw and felt at the moment. And though I was sure Sandy had not been thrilled to see me in her dress, she had let me do it. Plus, she had zipped and unzipped the dress for me, and had not asked or told me to take it off. I did wonder, from the experience, if Sandy would ever let me wear anything of hers again, since she then had a very good idea of just how well her clothes did fit and look on me. But then, I had never expected Sandy to so willingly and knowingly let me start wearing everything she had, and letting me dress just like her. Sandy had chosen to let me do it, and made it so I could. Any concerns I did have about Sandy and what would happen, faded fairly quickly when, a couple days later, Sandy asked me if I would do her house chores the next morning. Her parents would be gone, and I would have the house to myself. My doing Sandy’s house chores was the pretext Sandy came up with so that she could let me wear her things. I knew Sandy well enough to know that she didn’t do anything she didn’t want to do. I couldn’t help but love Sandy even more. It was a couple months later, before there came another time I asked Sandy to see me in something of hers again. To be continued... Gloria - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Everybody's story is different" -- Barbra Casbar, trans activist - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [In the News] PORTRAIT OF A LADY By Ashlea Halpern Published: Dec 13, 2006 The Strange Allure of Cross-Dressers My first exposure to cross-dressers was the granny-wigged Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, followed by Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like A Lady." My inaugural in-person CD encounter was with a wayward high school boyfriend who occasionally wore lipstick and pranced around his parents' living room in my bra and panties. Sometimes with his buddies, who also wore bras. Mrs. Doubtfire, of course, wasn't a cross-dresser - she was an out-of-work actor posing as a nanny. Steven Tyler's lady had the body of a Venus, but her story was only skin-deep. And the old boyfriend, well, he had other issues. So what exactly defines cross-dressing? Is it merely a fetish? And does it have anything to do with sexual preference? For answers, I turn to 58-year-old Exton-Lionville resident JoAnn Roberts, publisher of LadyLike magazine, author of the multivolume Art & Illusion: A Guide to Crossdressing, co-founder of the Renaissance Transgender Association, and organizer of the Beauty and the Beach cross-dressers' weekender in Rehoboth, Del. Twice married, with two grown children, the part-time cross-dresser and "recovering Catholic" was around 6 years old when she found one of her mother's nightgowns in a hamper and slipped it on. "I couldn't believe how soft it was," she remembers. "I slept in it all night." It took Roberts most of the '70s and '80s, including a spell in San Francisco, to really get acquainted with her feminine side. "I finally decided, I'm not John Wayne. I'm never gonna be that. So what do I want out of life?" Eventually she mastered the nuances: the sexy walk, the studio foundation, picking the right outfit. (Roberts says the biggest mistake CDs make is dressing like "tramps" and "teenie boppers.") Her voice is still gruff over the phone; "That's one thing I never tried to change." It is commonly though mistakenly thought that cross-dressing, while often habitual, identifies a person as transsexual; in reality, pre-op and post-op transgendered folks rarely identify as cross-dressers. That's part of the reason she fought for the umbrella term "transgender," encompassing drag queens, drag kings, cross-dressers, MTFs, FTMs, androgynes and whatever other gender-identity labels float somewhere between our society's normative binary gender roles. This has led to mild unrest within the TG community. "Transsexuals look down their noses at CDs and accuse them of playing," says Roberts. "[But] TSs tend to be very politically active with no money. CDs have all the money but are apathetic ... I wanted each to sympathize more with the other." Roberts has counseled hundreds of CD couples. She says many wives know about their husbands' cross-dressing, but few accept it. Instead, they question their partner's sexuality, and sometimes their own self-worth. "They have to remind themselves that they fell in love with the person underneath the clothes," says Roberts. "But that can be hard." Escaping the stigma that all CDs are homosexuals, perverts and/or sex workers has also proven troublesome. Distributors scoffed at Roberts when she first explained that LadyLike was not a porno mag, but rather a CD lifestyle publication. "They said, 'You're nuts if there's no genitals,'" she chuckles, adding that while sexual pleasure is a part of many CDs' lives, it's the emotional satisfaction that carries a far greater weight. Dude has to feel like a lady. Next Month: I think I may have a thing for CDs. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person; Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth"
--Oscar Wilde
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Last Laugh] AQUADISIAC’S DRAG TIPS FOR THE TESTOSTERONIALLY-INCLINED Hello little fishes, 
Halloween is just days away, and while the Fundamentalists are busy hiding their children from us pagans, I thought it was time to bring to light one of the truly dangerous practices of the season.Halloween marks the one time of year when men of all colors, creeds, and sexual preferences (including heterosexuality) feel secure enough to present themselves to the world at large in the garments and accoutrements of the fairer gender. Sure. It all seems like good fun. A cheap wig. Some dimestore makeup. Ha, ha ha, right? But bad drag is quickly becoming a menace to our way of life. It’s a sign of our society’s diminishing industriousness and leads to all sorts of laziness and sloth. Like poor table manners. Or bad penmanship. Or starting wars in the Middle East with no concrete escape plan. So this Halloween, I want all stout pink-blooded American men to take heed. To put a little effort into their drag. And to that end, I’m divulging the secrets of effective cross-dressing. Publicly sharing drag techniques is a little like a magician sharing the tricks behind the illusions. I fully expect to be shunned by my fellow queens. But I cannot bear another seasonal sighting of a hirsute, six-foot, pot-bellied man wearing summer season Payless heels and a Jaclyn Smith Casual Elegance blouson: So. Here is a complete and technical guide to effective drag. I urge you to spread this missive far and wide. Forward to your friends. Leave no e-mail address unturned. No blog unblogged. It’s time to end the scourge of bad drag once and for all. Please. Think of the children. LESSON 1: Good drag happens in this order Shower/Shave Tuck Hose/Undergarments Makeup Costume Wig Go Out LESSON 2: Shower/Shave Prepare a hot hot hot shower or bath. Shave everything on your body TWICE in opposing directions. Even if you think it’s not going to show - shave it. Areas to include: legs, chest, neck, forearms, face, 1/2 inch around hairline, fingers, toes. And yes. Arch pluck your brows. Will they grow back? Who knows. That’s to worry about tomorrow. (Mine did.) LESSON 3: Tucking/Hose/Undergarments There are several methods of tucking. Some more complicated and potentially fertility-threatening than others. I recommend the following middle of the road one… (Btw, if you don’t tuck, you’re not in drag. You’re in clown costume.) Must have: one pair of two-sizes-too-small nude colored spandex control panties. They must be thick and tough. Not dainty. You won’t see them when you’re through, so don’t worry about sexiness. Reach around behind yourself, grab it all while it’s least suspecting and pull backwards firmly. Then quickly pull the tight panties up to trap it all in place. Breathe. Move around a little till it settles into its new home for the evening. Quickly afterwards, pull on two pairs of panty hose. (We’re not talking L’eggs here. You need to buy Danskins type sheer tights. Mass-market pantyhose all have control top seams that start around mid-thigh. You need yours sheer and seamless all the way to the waistband. If you want to start feeling sexy, now is the time to put on your decorative “outer underwear.” LESSON 4: Makeup No drugstore make-up. Tyra doesn’t wear it, and neither should you. Go to your local MAC counter. If you’re self-conscious about it, just tell the queen behind the counter that you’re doing a drag part in a play. But trust me, they don’t care. They’ll be excited to get the chance to advise someone other than a menopausal divorcee looking to “jumpstart her look.” (Apologies to my menopausal divorcee friends. But really. You know what I’m talking about.) First up, if it’s going to be hot where you’re partying, I recommend spraying a little aerosol antiperspirant on your visage. Not a lot. Like perfume - just spray a cloud in the air in front of you, and step into it. Foundation goes on first. You will need three shades. One a little darker than your skin, one lighter, and one that matches perfectly. Buy the cake kind. Work a little moisturizer into your make-up sponge. It will help the foundation sink into your skin. Apply the darker shade of foundation first, on either side of the nose, to slim it. And underneath your cheekbones. (Not on top them. It’s not blush.) Perhaps dab some at your temples. And a little on your chin if it’s prominent. Then apply the lighter shade of foundation on the bridge of your nose. At your cheekbones. On your eyelids. Next, apply your natural shade of foundation. All over. Even lightly on top of the lighter and darker portions you just applied. Then blend, blend, blend. (P.S. Don’t forget your neck and décolletage in all this.) Finally, press on powder that matches your main foundation color. Not too much, or it’ll cake and crease. Just enough to take off the sheen and “set” everything up. Your face should look like a mannequin’s. Only God can help if it looks like a mannequin from Barneys or one from Daffy’s. Now for the fun bits of the make-up. The eyes are the most important feature. First - eye shadow. (Please God, not blue. If the last time you noticed a woman’s eyeshadow was a hooker on Barney Miller, pick up an Elle magazine.) Use a couple of different shades. Think of your lid in three vertical zones. Nearest the nose, use a lighter shade. Even put a soft dot of almost pure white at the inside corner. Use your brightest hue (again, not blue) in the center. Use a darker verson of that same hue on the outside near the temple. Draw the shadow gently up into a point as it reaches your temples. And blend blend blend. Remember. It’s not about color. It’s about dramatic shading. Think of yourself as a silent screen star. Especially if you get overly gabby when you’re drunk. Now eyeliner: use pencil eyeliner that you can wet a bit. IMPORTANT: EYELINER DOES NOT SURROUND THE EYE. It should line about 3/4 of the outside upper lid, getting thicker as it reaches the temple. Same for the bottom, but not as thick. And finally lashes. You need three pairs of uppers, and one pair of lowers. Press the three upper sets together before gluing them on. And set them towards the outside of your lid, extending just past where your normal lashline ends. Same on the bottom. Keep them far away from your inner eye corner. Now you may want to touch up your liner to cover any dried glue. Moving on to the lips. I can’t stress this enough: NO RED LIPS. Only about 3 women in the world look good with red lips. And one of them won’t be you. Bright red (and all dark colors) will recede the lips, highlighting your prominent lantern jawline. Just don’t do it. I admit, it’s tempting. Instead pick a neutral, slightly colored lip color. It should match one of the shades of your eye shadow. I outline first, and touch up later. Tho some disagree. Line your mouth with a shade of pencil liner SLIGHTLY darker than your chosen color. This isn’t Spanish Harlem. (Mucho disculpas to my Spanish Harlem friends.) The liner should line up directly at the corner of your mouth, but then as it reaches center top and bottom, you can exaggerate slightly beyond your natural lip line. Shape it how you’ve always dreamed. Within reason. I’m not privy to your dreams, tho I’m sure many of them include moi. For lipstick, I always mixed my own. Again, MAC. Mix up a batch of liquid lip gloss, bronze and gold metallic powders, and a neutral colored powder. Then brush the glop on, blending into the lip liner. As a stunning finishing touch, put a soft finger dot of your white eye shadow powder in the center of your lower lip as a highlight. Be sure to bring an extra brush and small vial of premixed lip glop with you when you go out. You will need to reapply. Your face is done. That’s right. No blush. Your foundation sculpting should have already given you plenty of shading. Any more and you’ll look like the ho you’re trying desperately not to be. LESSON 5: Costume This one’s up to you. A few tips tho. Think mini-mini’s or very high slits. And I will let no one walk out the door without an old fashioned lace-up corset. Buy a decorative one to wear on the outside and build the rest of the costume around it. A corset is the ONLY way you will gain a waist and hips, which is the most prominent visual cue of the female species. I saw this on NOVA once. I don’t care if you’re already a thin-as-a-rail twink. Without the corset to reposition another couple of inches off of your waist and onto your hips, you’ll merely look like a twink in a dress. But, since I’ve now convinced you to wear a corset, I must warn you - don’t eat anything after a light lunch on the day of your debut. You’ll be far too technically complicated - with the corset and the tucking and the costume layers - to, umm, as my grandmother would say: “make a BM.” If your biceps and forearms are particularly muscular, here’s a little trick. Buy a pair of CHEAP pantyhose that match the color of your outfit. Cut out the crotch and toes and pull it over your head like a shirt. Pull the legs down off your shoulders. Wear this under your outfit, trimming away the neckline or whatever else you don’t want to see. It’s a very effective way to cover and draw attention away from your arms. Shoes: if you can’t walk in 7-inch heels, you don’t deserve to wear them. Practice. Things I can’t help you with. Nails. I always worked opera length gloves into my costumes, because I hated fake nails, and my hands are just too big. LESSON 6: Wigs That’s right. “Wigs” - plural. One wig ain’t gonna do it. Buy three wigs of the same color. If you can’t pin them together and style them yourself, take them to a friendly hairdresser. Tell them to “take it to the top.” You won’t look sexy in a thin little bob. You just won’t. Wigs go on last, of course, so you don’t mess up your make-up. Use a wig cap to keep your real hair back. Earlier, you shaved 1/2 inch around your hairline. You will want the wig-line to rest where your hairline normally does. If you leave your real hair unshaved, you’ll have to pull the wig forward to cover it, and it will look like, well…like you’re trying to cover your real hair. For those of you with receding hairlines, this may be your one silver lining. Sad, isn’t it? Poke some bobbypins through your wigs until they dig into your real hair at the scalp. Losing your wig during the evening is a terrible tragedy. I’ve seen it happen once. If you’re very worried about g-force twirling, brush a line of spirit gum along your (shaved) hairline and press the wig into that. LESSON 7: Go Out Now take a deep breath (or as deep as one can in a liver-crushing corset) and head out into the world. You’ve done your part to rid the world of bad drag, and for that you can be proud. Hugs and Fishes, Aqua Read the unexpurgated version at Aquadisiac's (aka: Josh Kilmer-Purcell) website - look for October 27, 2006 Buy Josh Kilmer-Purcell's outrageously intimate memoir from Amazon - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Group Information The Alpha Omega Society is a non-profit social support group for heterosexual crossdressers and their wives or partners. We primarily serve Cleveland and nearby Northeast Ohio communities.
Publication Information 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. We will exchange newsletters with any other similar group.
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