Makeover sparkle

In order to have a good time you don’t have to actually look good; you just have to think that you do. - Andy Warhol

As I mentioned before, I am not very good at crossdressing. However, I am quite encouraged by this comment from The Lazy Crossdresser by Charles Anders:

Looking good in women's clothes isn't the same thing as looking like a woman.

(The last time I read about Charles Anders, I seem to recall him saying that he went out dressed in women's clothing at least half the time, and didn't mind whether his friends called him by his male name or his female name (in the book this was Julia). I basically aspired to this situation, whilst knowing it would never happen: someone invites you to a party not knowing (or minding) whether you will show up in a shirt and jeans or a dress. I see just now that Charles Anders' identity is now Charlie Jane Anders. On her Wikipedia page and her personal website, feminine pronouns are used exclusively. It seems I am now finding Charlie at a different stage of the journey. I wish her well, with the merest touch of envy! Her book is fantastic in every way, and her website is hilarious (the flowchart alone is worth a gold medal)).

Anyway, enough with the pronouns already! For people who are not convincing crossdressers, or who can't do it at home, or both, you go and get a makeover. I have done this about four times now, with an average of once every two to three years. That's not a lot of activity, and I would like to apologise to those businesses right here: I would be round your place three times a week if I could possibly manage it.

My second-ever makeover was in England, at a business which caters for the entire male-to-female transgender spectrum. Naturally they offer a dressing service, where you can turn up and be pampered for a few hours, or indeed all day. They even cater to specific themes such as maid, bride or schoolgirl (those archetypes again!). When I (nervously) went along it was afternoon on a weekday. I had arranged a two-outfit makeover; you get the first one, then sit for a bit and drink tea, then the second one, then drink some more tea, then go home.

When I arrived it was just after lunch. I was met by the first assistant, (let's call her Monica). She showed me to a room full of outfits, and asked me to pick one. All I could see were rows, and rows, of clothes on hangers. In one sense, it was a treasure trove, but I couldn't see any of the clothes clearly, and didn't know what I would find, and couldn't therefore easily choose something without pulling out each item at a time and holding it up. I asked her for some help, and she asked me what sort of outfit I wanted. I don't know, I told her (truthfully). Nothing too tarty. Just a normal, girl-next-door sort of look.

She looked at me a little quizzically, before rummaging among the hangers and bringing out some garments. She asked me if I wanted a corset and I said yes. She showed me to a changing booth, and left me to get dressed. For me, this was a special occasion, and I had prepared carefully, including an all-over shave which was beginning to itch. I started off by putting on the tights, and immediately put a big ladder in the leg. I had to get a new pair. Not a great start. Then once I had the bra and the panties and the tights on, I went outside where Monica helped me put the corset on. Then I went back in the cubicle and put on the rest of the clothes. There was a shiny blouse, a very short skirt, a pair of shoes which had heels so high I couldn't walk (and I couldn't easily bend down to put them on because of the corset). I emerged very unsteadily and not feeling at all feminine. Monica provided a pair of silicone boobs. Again this was a first for me (now I have a pair of my own), and I was very keen to try them, but they were too big.

The makeover wasn't a success either. It seemed Monica put on too much of everything: too much mascara, too much lipstick. When the wig was finally on, I felt like a caricature. What I saw in the mirror was not very attractive, and certainly wouldn't have been manageable on the street. Not to worry, I thought. Give yourself some time to settle down a bit and relax and maybe you will start to enjoy it. But I didn't.

In a sense, I thought, this is probably what most people want when they come here. They want exaggerations of femininity: the corset, the heels, the thick makeup (if not the actual maid outfit or bridal dress). I notice when crossdressing after a long period of abstinence that I am voracious, and I remind myself of the quotation "All things in moderation-- even moderation" during those times. It was forgivable for Monica to think that was what I was after. But really, it wasn't me. What I saw in the mirror (and there were of course plenty of mirrors) wasn't the image I saw in my mind of myself as a woman. I began to feel quite despondent as I drank my tea, even though I enjoyed leaving lipstick smears on the cup.

For my second makeover, Monica was busy doing something else, and I had Sally to look after me. She looked me up and down. "How do you feel?" she asked. Awful, I replied. This isn't what I had in mind at all.

Sally took me back to the garment room, and had a brief rummage. She brought out some more things. "Let's have the boobs," she said, and she gave me another pair, at least two sizes smaller. The clothes were better: a much more modest and sensible blouse, a much more comfortable skirt, and a short jacket. The shoes were better; at least I could walk in them. We got rid of the corset and my eyes stopped bulging outwards.

Then she did the makeup, but she started by scraping off all the old stuff with a trowel and beginning again. This time it was much more subtle and natural. And we finished off with a different wig, one which I had bought on a previous trip to the far East. It had looked amazing in the shop, but whenever I wore it, it looked like a dead animal perched on my head. With Sally's expert hands, and a long-tailed comb, it became amazing again. I had spent much of the makeover time either with my eyes closed, or looking the other way. When I turned round, and looked in the mirror, my jaw dropped. I looked fantastic. I couldn't believe it. Until that moment, I had not believed it would be possible to actually look like a woman without the help of the makeup artists who work for Peter Jackson. And I didn't look like a tart, or a drag queen, or a caricature. I just looked like me, only as a woman.

I was overcome with emotion. I thanked Sally extremely warmly. "You look really pretty", she commented, and I sensed her sincerity. We walked out into the shop area, where Monica was still working. Even Monica looked impressed. I was feeling so good, I wanted to wave my credit card at them and say "I'll take the lot!" and just walk out of the door. Of course, that was never going to happen: among other things, the business expects a certain level of circumspection from its clientele so as not to frighten the horses. So instead I had a cup of tea. It was a very British thing to do in the circumstances.

I stood at the counter and drank my tea. Other customers came and went. I just chatted with Sally and Monica. I felt relaxed, and the chat went from polite to friendly to hilarious, and soon we were all laughing. I realised something at that moment which seemed very profound. It had gradually gone from being a very polite customer-assistant interaction into a complete girly gossip. I felt more feminine at that moment than I had ever done in my life hitherto. And I like to think that, for them, this was different to how their customers usually behave with them (but here I may be completely flattering myself).

We chatted for over an hour. It was long past the time when I should have been getting ready to go, but they were in no hurry, and I believe that they were enjoying the conversation. As closing time began to approach, I hastened to take off my borrowed gear and put my own clothes back on (what some crossdressers refer to as their drabs, and I know exactly why).

Sally took some photos of me, and naturally I bought them. Good though they are, the image seen through the camera is still not as good as the image I saw in the mirror; I think the flash is unflattering. As with all crossdressing photos (for me at least), the photo is there as a tangible and irrefutable reminder of what happened, to aid future reminiscences.

I drove home absolutely purring, with my emotional energy on full charge. Shortly afterwards, I left to live in New Zealand, so I haven't had the chance to go back there. This experience included perhaps the best and worst of makeovers: since then none have been so good, nor so bad. I hope that my life's most fulfilling experience of femininity doesn't turn out to be one lipstick-smudged cup of tea in England in the autumn.

Privacy, Secrecy and Crossdressing

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to Thinking Allowed, a BBC podcast by the sociologist Prof Laurie Taylor. At university I found sociology among the most unstimulating of subjects. There was a graffito in the students' toilet next to the loo paper: it read Sociology Degrees: Please Help Yourself. When I first started listening to Thinking Allowed some years ago, I was fascinated by it, without realising that its core was sociology! Since then I have been devoted and, thanks to podcasts, never miss an issue. The programme is insightful, interesting, often funny and occasionally heartbreaking. Once in a while it tackles controversial topics unflinchingly. There is an extensive archive here, to which you can listen for free, and the specific podcast can be found here.

On this particular episode, Laurie's guest was Christena Nippert-Eng, who is Associate Professor of Sociology and Acting Chair of the Department of Social Sciences at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. She was discussing her new book, Islands of Privacy, which discusses the nature of privacy among "oceans of accessibility" around us. For each of us, there are things which we really want to keep private, and particular personal reasons why some things are kept "private" and some things "public", and some things are in between. I found this subject very interesting, and couldn't help applying some of her theoretical questions to myself, such as "How would it affect me if I lost this object and somebody else got hold of it?" In addition, Nippert-Eng was a warm, animated, and highly articulate speaker; a pleasure to listen to.

I haven't yet read her book, but it's now in my in-pile. You can find out more about the book here.

A secret, Nippert-Eng argues, is a piece of information so private that we have made an active decision that we will not share it with someone else, even if they ask about it. A secret is the "most private of the private". At any moment where disclosure might happen, we need to expend work and effort to avoid revealing our secret to someone else. We need to take decisions about secrets: a decision to have a secret, a decision to keep a secret, a decision to reveal a secret, or make a decision to try to find out someone else's secrets.

In addition, she points out each of us "manages our identity in front of other people (what Goffman called "impression management"). We are trying to present a certain image of ourselves to ourselves, and to all these other people around us. If you deny people privacy, you deny them the capacity to control what is known about them to other people, and to shape their identity in a way that they would like it to be."

I thought how much this resonated with me. As a crossdresser, I have many secrets (as I suspect many of us do). I expend considerable energy concealing that fact from other people, both verbally and in other ways. And I try very hard to create an identity for myself which is "acceptable" and "presentable" to the world in which I live. And yet, here I am, attempting to reveal aspects of myself on the Internet: surely the least private thing in the world! I am certain this blog is a safety-valve: it is one way of letting out just a little of the pressure it takes to contain my own secrets. In addition, as a scholarly type, I have always found that words are a very good way to crystallise my feelings.

Let's look from the outside. I am a professional, family man. I have a responsible job at a moderately prestigious institution. My professional reputation is good. I recycle. I give to charity. I don't drink heavily. I don't gamble. I don't have noxious habits. I don't even play golf! I have a house in the suburbs of my city, which is pretty similar to lots of houses around me. Most of the time, I am happy to do manly things: I chop trees, I ride my bike over mountains, I fix my car. I do dad stuff and husband stuff and supportive, pillar-of-the-community stuff and sociable, salt-of-the-earth stuff. It is easy to be that man, most of the time. I am not pretending to be this person: I am him (OK, technically I am he, but let's not split grammatical hairs).

When I look around at the other guys I know, I believe that none of them remotely suspects that I am a crossdresser; not my best friends, not my workmates. My wife knows (of which more later). Two very supportive friends looked after me once when I fell to pieces in their kitchen and confessed it all (the friendship endures but they have never mentioned the episode, or the crossdressing, since). And one friend once confided in me that he was struggling at work because he is gay, so in a quid-pro-quo moment, I told him. Unfortunately he moved away and we are seldom in touch now.

Secrecy: Christena Nippert-Eng

Now let's look from the inside. Inwardly, I long to express some aspect of femininity more or less constantly (there are some short respites from time to time). But this is where the problem begins: this is just not OK. My wife (who, let's be clear, is beautiful and funny and generally brilliant) just can't bear the notion that her husband is a crossdresser. We've tried a series of coping strategies including marital counselling, which hasn't made much difference (though I believe it saved our marriage). What she wants in a husband is 100% "man", and instead she has someone who is about 95% "man" and 5% "woman" (maybe; see my other post here for more discussion of this).

From her perspective, crossdressing is fine, provided I (1) tell no-one about it, (2) don't ever mention it, (3) do it alone, at home, with the phone off the hook and the blinds down. In all fairness, it's not that she hasn't seen it: she has come with me to one or two crossdressing social events, and has accompanied me to a couple of makeovers. I can't in all honesty say that she hasn't had a look at it. But she has only observed these events, not participated in them, and afterwards, when all I want to do is to talk about it, she sits in silence, and gets angry (or maybe angrier) when I try to bring it up later.

So why don't I just accept that? Well, there are loads of reasons. First, I am not very good at crossdressing. To look good as a woman requires a lot of practice; ideally an entire adolescence spent experimenting with every beauty product on the market. Though I watch women closely (using every erg of cognitive power I can muster) I just haven't got it right: the clothes, the cosmetics, the whole package still looks a bit weird. What I really need is a bit of help to get the basics right, then I can work on the fine tuning. That's where I keep hoping that she will come in, even though I accept she never will.

Second (and much more importantly), for me, crossdressing is an intimacy. It's about expressing the most sensitive, emotional and vulnerable part of me (the part I keep hidden deep down when I am in a leadership role, metaphorically roaring and beating my chest in front of the other silverbacks). I don't want to express that alone, and I certainly don't want to express it in front of strangers. I have no desire to take that intimacy anywhere outside my marriage. But I wish that my wife would recognise that as a good thing and share it with me!

I function primarily on two levels, the emotional and the intellectual. Deprivation of the emotional content of crossdressing is painful, but being denied the intellectual aspect of just talking about it is doubly painful.

But my family and my marriage are the most important things in my life. It is more important to me to be a husband, and a father, than it is to be a crossdresser. So I keep it hidden, and keep my mouth shut about it.

What would happen if my work found out? Well, I wouldn't lose my job: my institution has an Equality and Diversity programme. My colleagues would laugh at me, of course, and there would be a series of subtle shifts between some people I now get on with who would gradually turn their backs (stop inviting us round, stop bringing their kids to play), and some people I don't get on well with now who would unexpectedly be supportive or unchanged. I could cope with that, I suppose.

What would happen if the kids found out? At the moment they are young enough for it probably not to be that much of a big deal. They all enjoy playing dress-up. I don't think they would love their dad any less for it. (I am certain that my wife would view that situation with horror). But I do worry about what would happen if the other kids at school found out. Kids can be really cruel to each other, and all it takes is one tiny stigma for the bullying to start. It's tough enough to grow up without having to deal with daily taunts about your father's underwear predilections.

So, just like Nippert-Eng suggests, my secrecy about crossdressing is a deliberate choice. It's not that I lack the confidence to crossdress publicly and happily. It's not that I lack the wherewithall to accomplish it either (a bit of judicious expenditure and some careful practice would work wonders). But actions have consequences. Having considered those consequences extremely carefully, I think that the situation as it stands is the least painful. But it's still painful!

Crossdressing and advertising

I think advertising is an excellent barometer of society's attitudes. It's not so much about what products people want to buy, but the way in which they are marketed which interests me.

I have seen a lot of television from all over the world, and I think certain patterns can be discerned. The UK, for example, seems to favour understatement ("Try our product. It's actually quite good and you might find you like it."), whereas the US seems to favour overstatement ("Our product will change your LIFE by how good it is!"). Of course, there are many exceptions to this sort of broad statement.

TV ads have 30 seconds to grab your attention, interest you in the product, and burrow into your memory so that the next time you go shopping, the product resurfaces in your mind and you go and buy it. The means by which these goals are achieved is sometimes clever and interesting, and sometimes dull and banal. Agencies seek to associate the product with something attractive: sex, humour, happy children. Advertising jingles are an especially insidious way to drill a brand into your memory: I loathe their irritating jolly little melodies and instrumental stabs.

But a really good ad makes you laugh, think, or sit up in surprise. And it gets progressively harder to do any of those things because all the good ideas (the low-hanging fruit) have all been seen a thousand times before (and some of them, like brand slogans or jingles, have been done to death). It's no suprise to me that there are now awards for good ads, where someone in a tux reads out the results in reverse order from the back of a golden card.

Ads which speak to women about femininity (whether that be clothes, cosmetics, perfume, or even chocolate), speak right to the heart of crossdressers too: that's how I want to look! That's how I want to feel! Where can I get some of that product? (I might explore this a little further in a different post).

Let's take a look at some advertising featuring cross-dressing. Take a look at this one first:

In this UK commercial for kitchen paper, we meet "Brenda" and "Audrey", two blokes in drag, complete with bristly chins and big square hands. I saw a series of such ads on British TV; though they have since stopped, thankfully. (This was the most typical of the series I could find on YouTube). I suppose the ad agency is trying to get a new angle on the "overworked housewife" archetype. You know the one: youngish, pretty but not gorgeous, struggling to keep up with baby poo and toddler dribble and slobbery dogs with dirty paws and sinks which won't drain properly. Perhaps what she really needs is a big hairy man in a dress to do her chores for her.

This sort of ad is just awful for me. The crossdressers here are figures of ridicule, and this sort of sniggering and poking fun at grotesque crossdressers has never been funny; not even in a 1960's cartoon seaside-postcard sort of way. This exact trope is regularly found in the comedy show Little Britain, where "rubbish transvestite Emily" parades around insisting she is a "laydee" and fooling no-one. I cringe when I see this: I stopped watching the show because I found it so distasteful. Little Britain has a lot of very clever comedy (and is very popular), but this just misses the mark for me. However, the shows creators, Matt Lucas and David Walliams, continue their comic crossdressing in other shows such as Come Fly With Me.

So let's move on. When I first saw this ad, I thought it was my worst nightmare come to celluloid:

This ad works in a whole different way from the kitchen paper one. Once again, I saw this on TV in the UK, and found myself bracing myself for the inevitable slew of ridicule. However, it didn't take place. The young, attractive and cool driver of the car sees the drag queens in the queue for the club. We assume his look of surprise is horror at recognising his father (although he probably doesn't dress like that for the office!). However, then we release a collective "phew!" when we realise the driver isn't shocked at his father's appearance; he just wants in the club.

I like this sort of ad. In fairness, the drag queens in the queue are much too gaudy for my personal taste (though I suppose for the advert's purposes, they need to be unmistakeable; a convincing crossdresser wouldn't cut it here at all). On the other hand, the message of the ad ("We live in modern times") carries (for me) a great note of positivity. Okay, it says. Some men like to crossdress. Get over it. Hey, son, bring your friends and we'll all go partying together.

Here is my third offering. This is one I never saw on the screen, but found on the Internet. Take a look:

Very different in tone and theme this time. This advert makes no attempt at humour at all, but still attempts to surprise us. (Whose idea was that awful music?) If you hadn't seen this before, you would know from finding it here that the girl in the dress was really a boy, but in a bit of a breach of the traditional plot element, you might not have spotted that the boy in the suit was really a girl. And the discussion which follows renders all my careful use of pronouns to be a confusing waste of time. I shall do my best.

Interesting though this ad is, it doesn't quite hit the spot for me. The girl in the dress looks amazing. The boy in the suit looks convincing enough to begin with (he seems to have miraculously acquired a bit of makeup by the time he takes his hair down). Both of these actors make me think of the model Andrej Pejic, a man who is so androgynously beautiful he can successfully model both men's and women's clothing on the catwalk, and is in considerable demand to do so (What does that say about our idealised image of women?).

I am sure the ad agency (and I think this ad has a European pedigree) is trying to show that its Italian aperitif may look similar to other drinks, but underneath it is quite different. On the other hand, I am not sure that the final bit of action, spilling the drink on the dress provoking the big reveal, is meaningful in any way, although I am sure they needed some pretext for it. Does this imply a restitution of social norms somehow? Maybe I am overthinking it. I find myself coming away saying "Hmmm....ok", rather than "Hey! Wow!"

Once again, though, I take some encouragement from this ad. Both protagonists are beautiful, whether as a boy or a girl. Both are enjoying their crossdressing, publicly and successfully. They are not in drag; they are not grotesque or overcooked. There is an undertone of the forbidden or the spicy, but I suspect that's what the agency is trying to associate with the product, and I certainly associate with crossdressing myself. Overall the ad doesn't grab me or make me want to buy the product, but it doesn't repel me and want me to shout at the screen (like the kitchen paper ad).

So the winner for me is the Twingo ad, with Campari in second place. Congratulations. A wooden spoon with two golden raspberries to Bounty. Sorry lads.

The Internet has dozens of ads featuring crossdressing. In a future blog post, I might get on and talk about a few more.

High heels!

High heels! Could there be a more tangible object of crossdressing desire? A clearer icon of feminine aspiration?

I've been thinking about them a bit lately. Pondering high heels tells me, I think, something about my own femininity. But first, let's take a look around.

Impractical: heels

Wikipedia tells us (correctly, I am sure) that high heels started off as a form of male attire, as a means of preventing the heel of the boot from slipping out of the stirrup when riding a horse, like a cowboy boot. That makes a lot of sense for me. Later, in several countries, stacked heeled footwear was fashionable for both sexes as a symbol of status and wealth, from which comes the phrase "well-heeled". Wikipedia tells us that high-heeled shoes became fashionable for only women from about the mid 19th century onwards. This fits with some of my beliefs about crossdressing, that things only started to get interesting for us from the Victorian era onwards. But for that, you will need to wait for another blog entry.

So much for the official history. How about this one? Oscar Kiss Maerth, in a distasteful pseudoscientific work from the 1970s, called The Beginning was the End postulated that modern humans evolved from a more primitive species of cannibalistic, brain-eating ape, which nonetheless had several behaviours in common with modern humans (though being unclothed, cross-dressing isn't among them):

Maerth: The rape of the female apes was... no simple matter and the mating could not be carried out as is usual among apes, that is, with the male animal entering the female from behind... Therefore the females normally had to be pulled to the ground by several cannibal ape-men and laid on their backs so that they could be raped... The legs of the females being raped were raised when they lay in this position and the tips of the feet were extended forward at the moment of orgasm so that the ball of the foot was pushed up. This was a sexually exciting sight for the males... and has remained in their subconscious right up to the present. That is why female legs with the tips of the foot stretched downwards and the [heels] of the feet raised are still sexually stimulating today. This is the origin of high heels.

Man the pumps!

Sorry to put you off your dinner with this. This is only one of a hundred junk science theories to explain human sexual behaviour. Before we move on, Maersk has a point: high heels are no longer about height, status, or horse riding. They are about sex.

The best book about crossdressing ever written is, in my opinion, My Husband Betty by Helen Boyd. This book is simply stunning: insightful, articulate, powerfully written, forthright to the point of agony, deeply sympathetic and yet occasionally ruthless. I couldn't finish it in one go, since the book told me so many things about myself that I couldn't confront them all at once; the book still makes uncomfortable reading, since it so effectively demolishes the facade I live behind. You can find Boyd's blog, which is regularly updated, here, and I intend to explore many of her other points in future blog entries.

Here she is, in typical style, giving it both barrels. Watch also her deliberate use of pronouns.

Boyd: Meredith tells me that her husband Victoria claims to be more comfortable in women's clothes. "How can he tell me that? They're not comfortable. I have to wear them. I know they're not comfortable. He's full of it." I can't help but agree. High heels, bras and pantyhose are not comfortable, and the types of lingerie many crossdressers really love-- garters, stockings, and corsets-- are something close to sartorial torture. What I've learned is that Victoria means he is psychologically comfortable, and that dressing as a woman satisfies him so deeply that the physical discomfort is immaterial. 

Ouch! Once again, Boyd hits home here. After a lovely day of crossdressing, the next day I sometimes get a twinge (say in my ankle) which reminds me of the previous day. It may be physically uncomfortable, but since these episodes are few, I welcome reminders of them. And high heels are painful! And awkward to balance in. Despite much experimentation and very careful balancing, I still can't walk comfortably or naturally in stilettos, although wedge heels are easier to balance and walk around in.

High heels have become a powerful expression of femininity. This is associated with the traditional (outdated!) notion of women being delicate and sensitive creatures, ill-suited to coarse manual work. It's also associated with beauty (since high heeled shoes are deliberately highly crafted with lots of gorgeous detail); with reward (since they are expensive, women reward themselves with buying new shoes); and with sex appeal (for which high-heels are practically a synecdoche). High heels make you feel fabulous.

So women don't wear high heels for comfort or practicality; they wear them because they value the associations which the shoes have more than the drawbacks, which is that they are gloriously impractical, quite amazingly uncomfortable, and eye-wateringly expensive (at least the good ones are).

Alluring: Emma Bunton

For many women (such as the model with the red shoes in the picture above) the shoe causes the forefoot to be a linear extension of the calf, which accentuates the apparent leg length. But a few women, such as Emma Bunton, (always my favourite Spice Girl) pictured here, can hyperflex the ankle, so that the contour of the ankle is slightly greater than 180 degrees, and this is powerfully alluring (I am sure it is quite intentional).

So where does that leave me? I flatter myself that, for me, crossdressing isn't a fetish. It's simply about expressing a side of me which would otherwise be suppressed. And yet, I can't find a pair of flat girl shoes I like, no matter how sparkly, or how elegant, or how flattering. I would rather wear high heels every time.

What this tells me is that, one way or another, crossdressing does have a fetishistic component for me. If it were not so, I could simply wear clothes that women themselves wear, and that would suffice. The fact that this doesn't satisfy me reveals that simply wearing what women wear (which is flats or trainers almost all the time) isn't enough. This is a powerful (and, if I am honest) uncomfortable truth about my own crossdressing.

===

Addendum: 12th March 2012

X-appeal.

I've been thinking a bit more about this post. I haven't changed it, since I wrote what I was feeling at the time. However, for me, cross-dressing is an unusual event. It doesn't happen every day; not even every month, and therefore I want it to be as special as possible. I suppose for a real woman, going to an unusual event (a particular birthday party, or a family celebration) she would want to wear something special too, and turning up in trainers or flat shoes might not be it.

A small number of women seem to want to wear high heels all the time: on long-haul flights, for example, one would think that high heels would be extremely impractical, yet one still sees women wearing high heels on such flights.

But most women wear high heels on special occasions, and so do I. I honestly think that if I could crossdress freely every day, I would very shortly change to more comfortable footwear, or perhaps invest in a pair of bionic ankles. So maybe my interest in high heels isn't so fetishistic after all?

Addendum: 28th January 2013

Just this week the good old BBC have run an article on their website about this very subject, entitled Why did men stop wearing high heels? You can read the full text here. And the BBC also has an interesting magazine article here, called Sex on Legs: The Stiletto.

Addendum: 23rd December 2016

More about high heels from the BBC. I am beginning to think they may be obsessed. There is a wonderful podcast called The Why Factor, presented by Mike Williams. The Why Factor is a series of short (15-20 minute) explorations of "why we do the things we do". I hope to discuss the episode which discusses crossdressing, in more detail, in a future article. However, this one is about high heels. (Interestingly, the episode on the BBC website is an abridged, 12-minute version. The full, 18-minute episode which I heard came from iTunes). This podcast confirms the things I discuss above: that high heels were originally worn by men; that they became a symbol of wealth, and then they become an image of sexuality.

Interestingly, Williams turns up for a lesson in how to walk in heels. In her dance studio in London, Sarah Toner runs workshops to teach people (and freely admits some of them are men) how to walk elegantly in high heels, and of course Williams does poorly.

But the new insight, which I found unexpected and slightly disturbing, came from Toner herself, when she discusses why high heels are popular.

Toner: I also think it has to do with the way that you can't really run away. You become a more vulnerable person in a sense, and I think that also has something to do with it.
Williams: I hadn't thought of it like that but when you consider it like that, the fact that the woman is more vulnerable, it's quite sinister.
Toner: It is quite sinister.

This is an interesting take on the phenomenon of high heels, coming as it does from someone who makes her living (at least partly) out of teaching people how to walk in them.

Pinnacles of masculinity

Surely it cannot be true that men have football instead of emotions? --Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

As an academic with an inquiring mind, I find myself interested in a great many things. There are very few things which I have no interest in whatsoever, but field sports is one of them. One of the earliest things which I realised marked me out from among the "normal" boys was my complete disinterest in football. (For the avoidance of doubt, the football I mean here is soccer).

Where I grew up, football was ingrained. Knowledge, understanding and appreciation of football was essential for peer acceptance. I possessed none of those.

While I found it easy to learn the binomial nomenclature of living things, I found it impossible to learn anything about football. Conversely, boys in my class who struggled with the simplest of arithmetic and grammar knew seemingly everything about football: all the names of all the players in all the teams. And the peripheral information too: the managers, the grounds, the histories. Who beat whom in the semifinals in 1982, and what the score was.

Of course, I played football at school. The alternative was complete isolation, which was worse. But lacking any enthusiasm for the game, I was basically rubbish at it (yes, I was always the last kid picked for the team). I still don't understand the offside rule. As soon as reasonably possible, I gave up football completely.

I laughed out loud when I read this extract from the wonderful book, Long Way Round, written by Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. In 2004, they made a trip round the world on motorbikes, telling everyone they were going from London to New York, "the long way round". I saw a new side to Ewan McGregor which I found I really admired, and I found myself deeply moved at many of the situations they found themselves in. I often wish I could do something similar.

In this extract, Ewan and Charlie have just been stopped by the police at a border:

"Are you German?" one of the policeman said.
"No, British. He's English and I'm Scottish", I said, pointing to the flags on our helmets.
"Arsenal!" the policeman exclaimed.
Not a football fan, I nevertheless realised that I should play along. After all, Jamie [their security advisor] had told us there were two English words that were understood the world over: fuck and Beckham.
"Yeah, Arsenal," I said, smiling and trying to look enthusiastic about a team of which I knew nothing.
"Chelsea!" the policeman said. I racked my brain. I knew Chelsea had recently played a team from somewhere in Europe.
"Three-one," the policeman said. "Monaco three. Chelsea one."
I was lost. Football, the male lingua franca, and I couldn't speak a word.

I've had similar conversations with other men my whole life, in which I attempt to feign knowledge or interest in this most uninteresting subject.

My problems are not limited to football, but also rugby, which was played at my secondary school in preference to soccer. Football, they say, is a game for gentlemen, but played by hooligans. Rugby is a game for hooligans, played by gentlemen. Either of those sayings may be true in some circumstances. From my perspective, both seem to be games for hooligans, played by hooligans.

New Zealand is a wonderful country in all respects: outstanding scenery, amazing food and wine, delightful people, and a welcoming, egalitarian society which made me feel instantly at home. I have spent several years there. The national game of NZ is rugby, and the national team is the All Blacks, who won the most recent Rugby World Cup in 2011.

As a student, I knew very little about New Zealand. My girlfriend of the time had been to many more rugby matches than I had, and one day told me about the haka. I had never heard of it. It was, she said, a war dance performed by the All Blacks before their international fixtures. A way of intimidating the opposition, it sounded ridiculous and comical: surely something to provoke amusement rather than intimidation.

It took some years before I eventually witnessed a haka. My jaw dropped. Take a look:

This is very similar to the haka which I first saw. In fact, on YouTube there are dozens of clips to choose from. Even the All Blacks' haka is not a concrete thing, but there are different versions which are performed from time to time.

Clearly it is a Maori war dance. The All Blacks have been doing a haka for over a century, so it's not a new thing. In fact, other island nations have similar intimidating dances which they perform before their games. The history and the translation can be easily found on Wikipedia.

But if you knew nothing of any of this, you would just need to watch it. The haka speaks clearly on a level which transcends all language, culture and geographical boundaries. It is the language of the midbrain, the language of pure testosterone-drenched aggression. Fifteen or so of the toughest, strongest and most powerful players in the world line up, roar, stomp, slap themselves and glare at you with expressions of pure hostility. It looks like rage. It looks like violence. It looks like pain. And it is doesn't contain any of these things!

When I first saw it, I thought it was one of the most thrilling and frightening displays I had ever seen. It still makes me want to run away and hide. I surrender! The reason I find it so powerful is that I know that I would have no meaningful answer to it whatsoever: no threat or physicality to offer in return; this is not true of the opposing team, who are also fifteen or so of the toughest players in the world.

I think the haka is an astonishing thing. I totally get it: I understand its popularity, its longevity, and its widespread imitation. I feel quite strongly, however, that it is unfair for the All Blacks to have the psychological advantage of performing the haka, but according to official rules the other team is not permitted to perform any act of defiance or retribution.

When looking for a pinnacle of masculinity, the haka must be pretty close to it. As someone who is not aggressive or traditionally masculine in any way, even I adore it.

How does one respond to this level of masculinity? You can't fight fire with fire, but you can fight it with another masculine gesture, and a dash of wit:

Tampon Troubles

A lot of controversy has been generated this week by a New Zealand television advertisement for tampons. The brand, Libra, produced a 30-second commercial featuring a crossdresser and a genetic woman in the ladies' room. (It was also planned to be screened in Australia).

The ad features a "competition" between the crossdresser and the girl, as they attempt to outdo each other in an "anything you can do, I can do better" manner: applying lip gloss and mascara, and jiggling their boobs. Finally the girl "wins" by pulling out a small box of tampons, at which the crossdresser stalks out in an apparent huff. The closing line of the commercial is "Libra gets girls".

Cherise Witehira, President of Agender New Zealand, said the ad was "blatantly transphobic" and called for a public apology and the ad to be withdrawn. Although no apology has been issued, the ad has been taken off the air after only a couple of screenings. Thankfully we have YouTube, where we can all watch it as often as we like.

In her interview with TVNZ, Ms Witehira claimed that members of the public, who are not familiar with different categories of transgendered people, would be confused about whether the crossdresser in the ad was a drag queen or a transsexual.

However, the main point of contention seems to be that the ad is claiming that transgendered women are not "real" women, because they don't menstruate. Some very powerful comments to this effect have been left on Libra's Facebook page and in other public fora.

In addition, some commentators are pointing out the ad is just in poor taste. It's not offensive, it's just not that funny.

In fairness, not everyone hates the ad. There are some positive comments in response to the NZ Herald's article about it. Serena writes: The trans community is not speaking for me here. (I'm a 10 years post-operative transwoman). The character is clearly a drag queen, the advert is gentle and funny, and a whole lot of people need to lighten up, they are NOT helping the trans community in any way be being up in arms about nothing. How can people be "disgusted and offended" by this? next they'll get upset by knicker and bra adverts. I'd love to be able to disown the lot of them.

So what do I think about this?

First, one sure fire way to stimulate a great deal of public interest in something is to protest about it. By protesting so strongly, Cherise Witehira has undoubtedly scored an own goal: she has given the ad substantially more publicity than it would otherwise have generated. (It would probably have been screened late at night a dozen or so times, before being eventually dropped).

Second, I deeply sympathise with the plight of transsexual people of all kinds. It's an unspeakably painful experience to go through. Every one of them I have ever met has made enormous sacrifices to be true to themselves: their job, their friends, their marriage. So it's quite understandable that this sort of ad presses an especially tender button with some transsexual people: What do you mean I'm not a real woman?

Third, from an ordinary viewer's perspective, the ad is quite funny, though not a side-splitter. I find ads for feminine sanitary products to be, in general, quite unstimulating. Proving how many gallons of blue water a sanitary pad can absorb is not especially entertaining. I can see how the ad agency was looking for a new angle with a bit of humour thrown in, and I applaud this effort.

And Libra have always tried to inject a bit of humour into their advertising. Take a look at this one, which I think is hilarious, and provoked no complaint at all:

Fourth, it's not quite clear to me what "category" of trans person the ad is supposed to be depicting. It seems the transsexuals are quite clear that they don't identify with the person in the ad, who is described as a "drag queen" in some circles. Is she a drag queen? Or just a glamorous transvestite? It doesn't matter! I confess to being a "lumper" rather than a "splitter", in this regard; which is to say that, as a man who loves to dress as a woman, for me the motivation is less important than the behaviour. Another way to put it is to say that I think there is more than unites us than divides us, and insisting on somewhat arbitrary categorisations is unhelpful. In any case, I wish I could look as good as that!

Finally, from a crossdresser's viewpoint, the ad is quite cool. A person (who is not at first glance a crossdresser) walks into a ladies' room. At second glance, we realise there is something a little different about her (she looks great, IMHO), and we "read" her. So does the girl she is standing beside. Nobody runs screaming. Nobody calls the police. Nobody, in fact, thinks that this is a particularly inappropriate thing for her to be doing. In fact, the crossdresser and the girl begin to size each other up, and compete with each other, on the same terms. The only way in which the girl can "win" this competition is by changing the terms: you look as good as me, you dress as well as me, you can apply as many cosmetics as me, but I've got a uterus and you don't. (This is actually a cheap shot, which makes the girl (not the crossdresser) look bad, and is one reason why the ad doesn't succeed: the tampon wins, but does not win without (just a little) cruelty).

But stepping aside from this parting shot, the scenario of the ad is quite positive. It implies that crossdressers can just go out to bars like everyone else, and adopt the role and persona of women without anyone being upset by it. And the very premise of the ad is that it's acceptable for crossdressers to behave in this way. Surely some encouragement can be taken from that?

Green Eyed Monster

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on. --Iago.

I was listening to this podcast this week from the BBC. The broadcaster was Alain de Botton, who is, among other things, a modern philosopher. The podcast was on the subject of social climbing, but touched on the subject of envy.

Envy, de Botton argues, is not always a negative thing, although it has had a bit of a bad press, being one of the classical Seven Deadly Sins. In the context of social climbing, he points out that in order for us to advance in anything, we must first desire the qualities of those above us. Envy gives us the "energy to achieve".



Not envious: silverback

From the point of view of biology, many social animals, including primates, have a social hierarchy which is established by various sexual characteristics such as physical strength and aggression. This hierarchy is fluid, and changes depending on the relative strengths and successes of members of the group (for a well-known example, read Jack London's Call of the Wild). In our modern human world, the trappings of reproductive success are not necessarily physical (although beautiful, fit people are highly sought-after for reproduction), but may include money, celebrity and possessions.

There are a couple of times in my life when I have unquestionably felt deep envy. As a teenager, I had a friend who came from a wealthy family. He invited me round one day to see his father's new Lamborghini. As I sat in the driving seat and gripped the wheel, the car was, to me a complete object of desire, and simultaneously unobtainable; at the time it cost more than my parents' house. I was upset for the rest of the day; angry and resentful with my friend, even angry at my dad: why couldn't he get a better-paid job? Even although my friend's attitude was not "Look what I've got that you haven't", but "Come and share this lovely thing with us". His father even took me for a drive in it, the one and only time in my life I have ever been in such a car.

Thankfully I learned to cope with that envy. Our friendship survived and endures still. In general I find I am not envious: I am happy with my life, even if I don't own a sports car. (And would I really be happier if I had one? Surely not!).

Then a couple of years ago, I was walking in the centre of a European capital city with my family. I was carrying one of my kids, aged about 2, on my shoulders. It was a pleasant sunny afternoon; the streets were busy and the cafes bustling. As we walked up the hill, I saw a young woman ahead of me bending down to get something out of her bag. She had fantastic legs, a lovely figure, lavish long dark hair and looked dazzling. I couldn't help looking at her, and I am sure I was not the only one.

Envious of this: me

As I drew level with her, she straightened up and looked right at me. And she was a boy: of that I am absolutely certain. I do not know what emotion registered on my face, but she immediately looked away. We walked a little further on and I turned to look back at her. I am certain that she knew she had been read, since she looked at me again. Very shortly afterward, she got into a taxi with a companion and sped off.

I found myself very upset. My wife, who hadn't seen any of this, couldn't understand why I had been previously cheerful and became suddenly tense and silent. Even I couldn't at first identify why I was so upset. It was only later on that I realised that I was experiencing that cold metallic sensation of pure envy.

The girl I saw looked fantastic, was comfortable (and passable) crossdressing in public, and (I presumed) was on her way to some social event with her friend (who was also presenting as female, but I didn't get enough of a look at her). For me to achieve that is as impossible as to buy a Lamborghini. Sometimes, when I am dressing alone at home with the blinds drawn, I remind myself of that, and that doesn't help in any way at all!

If there was emotion written on my face when I looked at that girl, it was longing. The emotion of envy completely overwhelmed me, and prevented me from smiling, saying "Hi, you look fantastic. Do you mind if I ask where you got those shoes?" and turning the encounter into a pleasant event for both of us. Instead, she probably thought "Let's get in this taxi quick, before that creepy guy comes back".

If de Botton is right, envy is a clue to our most fundamental desires. If I were to actually buy a Lamborghini, I could just about do it, but it would mean selling my house, among other changes so profound that they cannot reasonably be made (and the truth is, I don't really want one any more). Likewise, regular public crossdressing would, in all likelihood, involve sacrifices which are too great to be reasonably made.

So there you have it. My desires are clear, but the limitations of my situation equally clear. And between those two things there is an insoluble tension which causes considerable discomfort at times.

My encounters with other trans people have not always elicited this same response, as I will no doubt get round to posting in the fullness of time.