The End of Days

This is a post which I have been dreading to write for a very long time: the one where I talk about the end of my marriage.

Despite my very best efforts, my marriage has ended. And the ultimate reason is my cross-dressing. I guess by posting this I can both help myself to go through the necessary grieving process, and also help other people out there who might be contemplating similar problems.

What it feels like when your marriage is ending

My wife and I met in continental Europe in the early nineties. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was living in another country, and spoke several languages. She was artistic and adventurous, where I was scholarly and conventional. We were both students at the time, and we were both seeing someone else. But there was definite chemistry. In the days before the Internet, we wrote long letters to one another. By a series of very unlikely steps, we saw each other again. I graduated, took a job, and in my first holiday, I went to visit her. By this time, she was living in the US, and we were both single.

I persuaded her to come to the UK, which she did, and we immediately moved in together. We married in the late nineties. My family adored her. My uncle (an academic) praised how clever she was. My grandfather said she was the most beautiful bride to walk down the aisle of our local church. Many people have, over many years, complimented me on how lucky I was to be married to someone like her.

I knew all along, of course, that my gender was not completely congruent with my apparent identity. I have known this ever since I can remember. I can remember wanting a pink blanket in kindergarten and being told I had to have a blue one. But I did not tell my wife any of these things.

Grotesque: Corporal Klinger

Partly I did not tell her because of shame: I was in my mid-twenties, and I knew next to nothing about my gender. Wherever I looked, crossdressers were figures of scorn, of ridicule. They seemed grotesque, repulsive. A great example would be Corporal Klinger, the MASH character who is trying to convince everyone he is crazy by dressing as a woman, so they will throw him out of the Army (har-har, what a wheeze). My internal identity was completely different to that. She already had a name in my mind. I pictured Vivienne as being like a wild animal, trapped and roaring in an unbreakable cage. Although I didn't quite know who Vivienne was, I knew that she and Klinger had nothing in common.

The other reason I didn't tell my wife was that I believed that being married to her would cure me. My trans feelings largely disappeared when I was with her, and I believed that I could choose to put crossdressing aside permanently. ("When I became a man, I put away childish things"). This was (I now realise) a very naïve belief, but nonetheless a fervent one. I was trying very hard not to be trans.

Of course it didn't last. About three years into the marriage, I broke down in tears, and told her my secret: that sometimes I like to dress in women's clothing. She was utterly shocked and horrified. That was the inflection point, the point which marked the start of the downward slope which has led to the end of the marriage.

At first things didn't really change. I purged. That didn't last. In all fairness, my wife tried to have a look at crossdressing, and see what it's about. One time we even went to a transvestite ball (I was in male mode) and she spoke to the other people to hear their stories. She was fascinated, sympathetic, charming. She made a very powerful impression on the people there. But as we came out, it was as if the door slammed. We got in the car to drive home. She didn't want to talk about it; didn't want to acknowledge it. Sitting in the darkness, I realised that she was probably shocked, digesting the implications of all of this. But she would come around. In a few days, we would be able to talk about it. But we never have; not one word from that day to this.

Never mentioned: crossdressing

And then there was the Dolly incident. My wife went to Manchester with her friend for a girly weekend. Unknown to them, their hotel was hosting an extravagant transvestite event in the ballroom. It was big, brash, loud and undeniable. My wife and her friend, both very attractive women, were cajoled to join the fun, and they did: laughing and dancing the night away with glamorous trannies. The following day, they got talking at breakfast to a few of them, and my wife said she was amazed by how normal they seemed: ordinary, pleasant guys. One of them, "Dolly", gave my wife his website details. She checked his website a day or so after coming home (without telling me) and was horrified to see pictures of him pouting in lingerie with his penis on display.

This one individual didn't intend to harm me, but did so very severely. What was he thinking? That she would be aroused? That she would think it was cool? Instead, she formed the very solid (and hard to dislodge) impression, that crossdressers, even the nice ones, even the "normal" ones, are not just after glamorous frocks, drinking and dancing, but are perverts behind closed doors. Thanks, Dolly.

It took me a while to realise how my wife has the ability to compartmentalise things in her life. It is as if she can take the idea of Vivienne, and all the trappings, all the accoutrements, and put them in a box, which is never acknowledged, never opened.

My wife came from a non-Western culture, where the behaviour of both men and women is rigidly proscribed. Even though she has lived in the West for decades, there are certain things which, to her, were not negotiable, and one of those things was that her husband mustn't wear a frock. It was even OK for other people to do that, as long as it wasn't her husband. She expected an alpha-male: indestructible, unshakeable, always in control. Never uncertain. Never vulnerable. Never tearful. Such a man would make her feel safe. That seems not wholly unreasonable, but there are two problems with it. The first is that I am not that man. I am not him today, and I have never been him. The second problem is that such a man doesn't actually exist.

Trapped: Vivienne

So she put Vivienne into that box, sealed the lid tightly, and pretended that Vivienne didn't exist. But it seemed that the harder my wife tried to suppress Vivienne, the harder Vivienne demanded to be expressed, to be heard, to be acknowledged. I searched for ways to explore Vivienne's identity without threatening my marriage. I joined the Beaumont Society, in the hope of opening a dialogue with like-minded people, but (as I say in my article) that didn't help much. I explored dressing, and had one or two makeovers. Eventually I started this blog.

What I wanted, most of all (and still do, I suppose) was simply acceptance. I wanted to be able to express this tender, vulnerable side of myself to the person who mattered most to me in the world. Vivienne wasn't just about the clothing; she was about the roles and expectations placed upon me because I happened to be born a boy. I wanted to have conversations with my wife about it, not strangers on the Internet. I wanted to dress at home, not in makeover shops in other cities. I wanted to be accepted for who I am, not for who she (and in fairness, everyone else during my upbringing) told me I ought to be. I wanted to enjoy being myself, being whole.

Instead, she insisted that this side of me was disgusting, unbearable. It must never be spoken of, never acknowledged, never accepted, never tolerated. But gradually that disgust, that poison, began to leak out of the box. It began to be aimed at aspects of me which were not associated with Vivienne. My wife began to gradually shut me out, to express John Gottman's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: the evocative name he gave to the behaviours which start to appear when the death-knell of a relationship is ringing loud and clear. We were four for four. And it was utter agony for me.

It didn't matter that I put rigid boundaries around my dressing. Four episodes a year, or less, and always, always in complete secrecy. We could not go shopping to a department store without her fearing that I was looking at the female mannequins and picturing myself in their clothing. She came to view Vivienne as the other woman, the one who came first in my affections.

It didn't matter that the other aspects of our lives were good: I had a good job and provided a good standard of living; we lived in a lovely house and had lovely kids and lovely friends. I didn't have any other obnoxious habits: gambling, drinking, drugs. That was all outweighed by the fact that I was not the alpha male that she thought she married.

Corrosive to relationships: fear

I see now that she was motivated by fear. Fear that I was going to start having sex with men. For the record, this was never my plan, and still isn't. Fear that I was going to start taking hormones and having surgery. Again, this was never the plan, and it still isn't. Fear that I was going to completely come out, and start showing up at the school parents' evening in a skirt and heels, where I would be a figure of contempt and ridicule (no matter how polite they might be to my face), and a cause for the kids to be mocked or bullied. Fear that other people would look down upon her: what on Earth possessed you to marry that freak?

The antidote to fear is communication, and this was another sticking point: she just would not communicate. The prospect, the existence of Vivienne, was so terrifying, so repugnant to her, that she could not have an ordinary conversation about it. I would talk, and she would not listen. I would listen, and she would not talk. It wasn't just that she didn't talk to me. She didn't talk to anyone: didn't confide in a close friend. Her fears were grinding around inside her, destroying her on the inside. On the outside, she began to shun me openly. The intimacy dried up years ago. To describe what happened, I can't do better than the words of Yoda:

"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering".

But we still pretended, to the outside world, that everything was fine. For myself, I did everything I possibly could to keep the show on the road. I moved us here to New Zealand. But coming here permanently, we brought Vivienne, and all the other problems, right along with us.

Fabulous but unworn: shoes

In among all the agony were glimpses of hope. Just occasionally, she would buy me girly gifts, such as this pair of fabulous wedge heels. As soon as I opened the box, I was excited and I wanted to try them on. But the look of disgust on her face, as I did so, made me instantly take them off, and I have never worn them since. I think she was really trying to make it work. But in one sense, these glimpses of hope (she bought me the shoes; she must hope I liked them) were actually worse than nothing at all, because the false hope, and the let-down afterward, were especially difficult to bear.

I started to take antidepressants. They were not a solution, but they helped me cope with the daily grinding agony of my life. I am still on them. And I took us to counselling. Good counselling, with a highly-recommended professional psychologist, who saw us for two years, together and separately. But even with his help, we were unable to negotiate, to compromise. My intake of alcohol and comfort food jumped sharply upwards.

In order to illustrate my despair and agony at my situation, I often used the phrase burning to death to describe how I was feeling. I was trying to show how desperately miserable I was in my life: I was desperate to change, to move, to get out of where I was. But, in a very real way, I was also being consumed. Each time we had an argument; each time she stonewalled my feelings, I lost a bit more energy, a bit more commitment. I knew I could not hold on much longer. I knew that one day, the last bit of energy would be gone, and the marriage would be dead.

It didn't matter. My wife was unable to change. And I don't mean this harshly. I realise now that, whether she chose to or not, she could not change her feelings. As for me, I had played my last card. I had nothing left to offer.

I remember the exact moment I realised that the marriage was over. For years, there had been two paths in front of me: the path to stay and try to fix things (which was painful, and exhausting) and the path to leave and start again (which was painful, and exhausting). But always, when I looked at those two paths, the path to leave always seemed the more painful. But one day, the see-saw just tipped the other way, and it has never tipped back. I realised, with sudden clarity: I was never going to be happy if I stayed in this marriage. The realisation was terrible but inescapable.

I can't heeeeeear you!

When I told my wife it was over, she was astonished. Where did this come from? she wanted to know. Didn't you hear me when I said I was burning to death? I replied. But it turns out she didn't get it: she couldn't grasp it. She had denied it, pushed it away, in the same way she did with Vivienne: it's too painful to contemplate, so I will pretend it doesn't exist.

Since then, her anger has gone from being red hot to being blue hot, like a blowtorch. The thing she feared most, that her husband would leave, has come to pass. She cannot--yet--accept that she helped to bring this about. She cannot accept one iota of responsibility for what happened. It's all my fault; that's her truth. And it's OK.

I have called this post The End of Days, because it really feels like that from my point of view. I am losing my lovely home, and I now live in a small rental house. I will get shared custody of my children. That cosy image I once had, of having a nice job, a nice wife, a nice house, and nice kids, and being happy, has turned out to be an empty dream. And unfortunately that dream ends here.

This blog has been profoundly healing for me in so many ways. It has helped me to crystallise my feelings about myself, and my gender, and my identity. Although it's long, this article is only a drop in the bucket compared to thirty-odd volumes of hand-written journals. That banner at the top of the screen? That's one of my journals, and one of my collection of fountain pens. I write every day, when I get the chance, and I have used those journals to explore every possible avenue, every possible way, to keep the marriage on the road, to keep myself sane until the kids got a bit older, to conceptualise my wife's behaviour in different, more manageable ways. I know I am leaving this marriage having tried my absolute best to save it, using every resource I possess.

I also offer these experiences to you, my readers, in case some of you are in a similar position, and these insights help to crystallise your position.

I know that all is not lost; that there will be a new chapter in my life soon. But I don't know what it will look like, and that uncertainty is a fresh kind of agony for me. Where will I live? What will I look like? What will I wear? What will happen to the kids? What will happen to my wife? What role will Vivienne play in my life? I have no answers to any of this, and discussion will need to wait for another day, and another blog post. Meanwhile, let's close the book.

===
Addendum

Katie Robbins wrote a powerful and thought-provoking article, with a similar theme, which you can read here. And hers is a lot shorter!

The Man from Venus

This post follows on from my previous post about how society at large considers that there are only two gender categories.

Pop psychology agrees. For example, the famous book by John Gray, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. (There are others too, such as the two books The Male Brain, and The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine. My wife bought me a copy of the former. I think she was trying to tell me something).

In any case, I thought it was worth unpacking some of the detail around that.

Mars

The Roman god Mars was the god of war. The planet Mars has been known since antiquity (the Greeks called him Ares). It was named by the ancients because of its obvious red colour; clearly associated with blood and therefore violence. In association with Mars, we have words like martial, meaning "to do with fighting", such as in martial arts, martial law and court martial.

I had never appreciated that the planet Mars has a different colour, until I moved to the Southern Hemisphere. Using an app for my iPhone, I can easily find Mars in the night sky, and it's amazingly red (actually more like orange). In the Northern Hemisphere, I struggled to see anything of the night sky at all; down here you can see the Milky Way and other celestial objects very clearly.

The astronomical symbol for Mars is a stylised depiction of Mars' circular shield, with his spear behind it. This symbol is very familiar to us; not only is it used to depict Mars in astronomical shorthand (with which few of us have any real association), but it has also been borrowed to represent the male gender. Wikipedia says the symbol can also represent iron.

So there we have it. Mars: red and bloody; iron; warlike; spear and shield. That's obviously what men are supposed to be all about.

Everyone knows that Venus was the Roman goddess of love and beauty, whom the Greeks called Aphrodite. The planet Venus is one of the brightest objects in the sky, and has long been recognised as the Morning Star and the Evening Star.

Venus

The astronomical symbol for Venus is a stylised depiction of Venus' hand mirror. When you are the goddess of love and beauty, you have a reputation to live up to, so you have to make sure you are always looking good.

Wikipedia says this symbol is associated with copper, as well as being borrowed for use to depict the female gender.

Adjectives to do with Venus are less well-known, and come from the Roman genitive form veneris. The obsolete term for sexually transmitted disease is venereal disease, and my dictionary says that venereal refers only to sexual intercourse. In anatomy, the pubic mound is known as the mons veneris; the mound of Venus.

So there we have it again. Venus: beautiful; luminous; sex; hand mirror. That's obviously what women are supposed to be all about.

Society tells me I should identify with Mars, when instead I feel much more affinity with Venus. The title of this post suggests a cheap B-movie, with a hideous villain (believe me, I feel like one sometimes).

But the truth is this: men are not from Mars. Women are not from Venus. Humans are all from Earth, all of us. And that means we need to recognise that, instead of being two separate groups, we are all one group, with considerable overlap between male and female. We don't do ourselves any favours (or any justice) if we pretend otherwise.

Men's Underwear and Fight Club

One of my correspondents, Scott, emailed me with a question this week:

What do men's underwear and Fight Club have in common?

Manly: string vests

The answer is obvious. Brad Pitt looks good in both! But Scott has a point. He goes on:

Men get seriously squeamish talking about their underwear. They don't like to talk about wearing it, or buying it, or whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable. This is in stark comparison to women, who blog about their bras and openly talk about their favorite styles of underwear online and in the break room at work.

Men hate shopping for underwear in stores. They avoid sales people and other shoppers. They buy "extra" stuff they didn't need to take the focus off of the underwear at the cash register. And they wait until their old underwear is falling apart before buying new.  Why do they hate buying underwear so much?

Men's underwear has really never been built for comfort, but guys never talk about that.  They don't openly discuss what they are wearing, or how it is too restrictive, not supportive enough, or causes chafing.  Guys just "deal with it" as the stuff of life. This is rather interesting, because underwear is worn longer than any other article of clothing, yet guys put the least thought into it.



So let's take a look at some of these assertions. One of my favourite ever books is called Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill. Insightful, impeccably researched, light-hearted bordering on hilarious, it's a wonderful book which made me think in a whole new way about shopping. Underhill runs a company which observes shoppers: how they interact with retail spaces, with products, with other shoppers, with parking and escalators and trolleys. And every gesture, every movement, is recorded and quantified. How long a consumer spends looking at item A before putting it back on the shelf and buying item B. As a result, Underhill knows how shopping works.



I do all my own modelling, you know.

Underhill's book has an entire chapter called Shop Like a Man. It describes men's behaviour when they shop for everything: groceries, clothing, power tools, detergent, cars. And it contains this observation:

We caught a signal moment in the life of the modern American male on videotape. A man was browsing thoughtfully at an underwear display when he suddenly reached around, grabbed a handful of his waistband, pulled it out and craned his neck so he could learn--finally!--what size pants he wears. Try to imagine a woman who doesn't know her underwear size. Impossible. Someday soon, we can all hope, every man will know his.

Underhill's observation lends credence to Scott's point above, that men hate shopping for underwear. He makes the point that, traditionally, women have bought the man's underwear: Men have always bought their own suits and shoes, but women, traditionally, shopped for everything in between. Another point he makes is that stores are not well-designed for men; they are often designed with women shoppers in mind, and as a result have a host of subtle discouragements to men to shop there.



Sir, do you have any budgies on your person?

To take Scott's next comment: men's underwear has never been built for comfort--until recently, that is. I bought some "performance briefs" (for men), like these Jockey ones. They are made of a black synthetic material, which is snug and stretchy. The waistband is neat and holds well. The fabric is breathable and doesn't smell, which makes it ideal for cycling (which I do a fair bit of). But here's what really struck me: those briefs are surprisingly similar to some women's panties. Overall, they are so comfortable that I plan to phase out my cotton briefs and go for these entirely. To be clear, they don't "do it" for me in a crossdressing sense; they are just comfortable and practical.

I think men's underwear is a microcosm of masculine attitudes. First, in general men want clothing which is practical and functional. Job done, moving on. Our fathers and grandfathers wore string vests and braces and other unattractive accoutrements. They would have snorted with scorn if you had offered them a selection of snug, comfortable underwear: "What's wrong with pants knitted from old sandbags? They never wear out!" As a result, men's underwear has tended toward the plain and functional, the sort of thing you would wear while sawing logs or changing an engine block.

Second, women's underwear has (I believe) been frequently seen as being sexy. Women wear sexy underwear underneath their day clothes to make them feel special. I am sure it is no accident that many crossdressers begin with wearing underwear as their first and most cherished female garments. Women's underwear is attractive to look at; it has all sorts of little details and features adorning it. The fabric is luxuriant: lacy or velvety. You wouldn't wear that for mundane physical jobs; you would wear it to feel fabulous, at a party, out for the evening, for a special event. That goes along with the traditional image of women themselves as being delicate, fragile creatures.

Batman probably wears underwear like this.

Men don't wear underwear to feel sexy; they wear underwear to hold their bits in place. And on that subject, those of you who haven't spent much time Down Under might not have come across one of my favourite pieces of Australian slang, which is that tight swimming trunks for men are called budgie-smugglers, the idea being that the bit down the front resembles a budgie tucked in there. Cheep cheep!

I think the field of men's underwear probably is changing. I think it is becoming OK for men to buy their own underwear; I know I do. Is it OK to choose underwear for comfort? I think so. Many companies are now deliberately marketing underwear which is designed to be fashionable and comfortable for men. (This image is from Tommy John).

But, as with skirts for men, I don't quite think men are ready to rethink the relationship they have with their underwear. This underwear, pictured (the grey number), is indisputably comfortable and practical, and is definitely cool; the sort of thing which would look great in the changing-room at the gym. It looks like something Bear Grylls or Daniel Craig would wear. But here is what I see. It still says tough. It still says rugged. It is still (resolutely?) unadorned, in that gunmetal-grey colour. It might possibly be something a woman, or a gay man, might describe as sexy (though the occupant might have as much to do with that as the garment). But it definitely doesn't seem like something that most men might describe as sexy. It seems designed to evoke feelings associated with masculinity: preparedness, resolve, decisiveness, leadership. Let's face it: James Bond doesn't wear underwear which makes him feel sexy.


Crikey: you could smuggle a whole aviary in this lot!

As I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog, for both women and men, beauty is something associated with women. So for underwear to make you feel sexy, it seems that both women and men turn to underwear associated with women. I've already drawn your attention to tights for men, but Australian company HommeMystere seems to be taking their lingerie collection for men to a whole new level: I see gorgeous little details. I see lacy. I see frilly. I see delicate. I see fabulous. I see some very awkward-looking male models! I also see their marketing seems deliberately heterosexual: sure, your girlfriend is gonna love you wearing that!

I also give an honourable mention to HerRoom, an online lingerie retailer which provides a very detailed section about lingerie shopping for men: forthright, welcoming and helpful (though it's not easy to find it from the front page). The wording and layout says: hey, if you're a guy who likes lingerie, we have no problem with that. Let us show you something you might be interested in.

Though I am quite impressed by HommeMystere and HerRoom and their approach (surely another sign that whatever men like to wear, it's all good), I am certain that they will remain on the periphery of the male market for a while yet. Men's underwear is already very in touch with Fight Club. What it needs is to get in touch with Titanic, with Mona Lisa Smile, with Mamma Mia. And that might mean breaking the First Rule.

===

My thanks to Scott for suggesting this topic. I've also written a blog post about men who like long nails.

Faking It - Part One

One of my favourite podcasts is the one from Freakonomics Radio. Presented by Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner, and frequently featuring the other co-author Steve Levitt, it is a whimsical, funny and fascinating look at the "hidden side of everything". If you haven't read the book, or its sequel, you should stop reading this and go out and do so immediately.

The fundamental premise of the books is that economics isn't just about money: it's about incentives of every kind. Any kind of gain or loss, any kind of reward or punishment. And that humans respond to incentives in predictable ways. The book provides many astonishing examples of statistical evidence of its claims, but the podcast builds on some of the details. Here is a partial transcript from the episode Faking It.

Dubner: You keep kosher. How kosher do you keep?
Kara: Extremely kosher. We allow no non-kosher foods into our kitchen, our refrigerator; we have three different sets of plates, plus another one for Passover—the whole nine yards.
Dubner: What’s your relationship with bacon?
Kara: (laughs) It’s secret and illicit–It was probably the first thing that I started cheating with.
Dubner: You cheat with bacon?
Kara: Again, not in my own kitchen, but I’ll go out and order bacon and pancakes. But at home it would be simply pancakes.
Dubner: Now, does you husband know about this?
Kara: He knows, he knows, he’s very forgiving.
Dubner: He knows because you tell him, or because you come home with the scent of your lover on your lips?
Kara: (laughs) A little of both, I have to admit.
Dubner: So you’re not really faking it with him, correct?
Kara: Correct, but we don’t tell my mother-in-law.

If you're thinking this post will be talking about how it feels to be a man who sometimes pretends to be a woman, then you will be disappointed. This post is about how my "ordinary" daily life involves faking it. This post touches on a previous post of mine which deals with privacy and secrecy, which was also inspired by a discussion on a podcast. Dubner really got me thinking.

Dubner: If the human psyche were a big map, nestled somewhere between the Sea of Cheating and the Valley of Lying, you’d come to the Kingdom of Faking It. I know what you’re thinking: No– I don’t fake it.

But actually I was thinking: yes, I do, every day. The examples which he provides are very similar, uncomfortably similar, to how I go about my life. In the example above, a Jewish woman admits to enjoying bacon, despite maintaining the façade of rigid observance of Jewish dietary laws. In another example in the podcast, a happily childless couple living in the Deep South pretend to attend church and pretend to be trying for a family because it is easier to get by in a society which expects those things. (They have gone so far as to choose a particular church which they pretend to attend, so that if the conversation gets a little more detailed, they are not immediately revealed).

Dubner even goes so far as to describe in detail Barack Obama's attempts to convince his voters that he is a regular churchgoer, and how he came a cropper when the preacher he claimed to admire turned out to have said some very questionable things.

I went to a private high school. My parents saved hard to get the money to send me there. I rubbed shoulders with kids who were from very wealthy families, and very quickly learned that my own modest background just didn't stand up. As a result, I started to pretend that I had travelled widely; that my father owned a luxury sports car; that we were wealthier than we really were. I hated myself for this pretence. I hated the fact that I had to be careful not to get caught out in a lie or a contradiction ("Wait a minute, I thought you said it was a green Aston Martin?"). I hated that it made me feel so inferior that I had to pretend to be something else, just to fit in.

Why doesn't Kara come clean? It seems to take a lot of effort to keep kosher as rigidly as she does, and yet she admits she breaks it with relish. Why not simply say: hey, I like bacon! Deal with it! Surely it's harder to maintain the pretence than just to abandon it? But I get it. By standing up, distancing herself from the observances of her community, Kara would be sending out a powerful message of dissonance with its core values. It is a lot easier to pretend, in front of people, and scoff her bacon quietly, behind the scenes. (There is a good chance her mother-in-law is doing the same!) And those societal forces extend right up as far as the President.

I am sure that most people who are doing this are not doing it for malicious reasons, but because the little white lies slightly oil the wheels of society. It's easier to fake it, to blend in. And to some extent, all of us, from the greatest to the least, is doing it too, to some extent.

Dubner: I’m a big fat faker, just like... Brian, the guy with a fake church, and Kara — that’s the woman who can’t tell her kosher-keeping family how much she loves bacon. Scientists have a framework for talking about this problem: signalling theory. It’s my way of telling the world that I’m a good friend; I’m not a sociopath; I’m a good candidate for that job you’re offering, or that last slot you have at an Ivy League school, or the sex you’re willing to have with someone. I’m faking it because I want you to like me, and I know I’m not worth liking (my italics).

I included this quote because it sums it up perfectly for me. It explains why, at school, I felt I had to concoct fake skiing holidays and fake sports cars, because I felt that my own personal qualities were insufficient.

And it also explains why, right now, I am faking it as an ordinary man with an ordinary life. I hide my crossdressing identity, even though that costs a lot of effort, because it's easier to just pretend it doesn't exist in public, then do it quietly, behind the scenes, where nobody can see. And, just as in high school, I hate the way that makes me feel. I am also fearful that if people find out, there will be unpleasant consequences. But I am also fed up; fed up of the effort it is costing me to make the pretence, and fed up of the sensation that people like the person they think I am rather than the person I actually am.

Portrait of Vivienne by Hannah

But lately, something has changed. I have come out to two of my friends. The first is a woman, whom I respect and admire greatly for her wisdom and compassion. She would also describe herself as a feminist, which gave me pause, and I sounded her out first by trying to engage her in conversation about the whole bathroom thing.

We were sitting in a café, and she knew I had something to tell her. I more or less blurted it out, and then started to talk about it very rapidly, but she silenced me by holding up her hand. "It's fine," she said. "It's cool". And there it was. I had more acceptance from her in the ten minutes of that conversation than in the ten previous years from my wife.

She asked a lot of searching and penetrating questions: had I considered hormones? Or surgery? I was disarmed by her directness. And all the way home, I was anxious: how would it affect our friendship? But there was also a great sense of relief, of being unburdened.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a male colleague. Again he is a man I admire, for his emotional awareness, his insightfulness, and his ability to relate to his masculinity without compromising any of these things. And again, I told him. He was visibly surprised, but has also been completely accepting. This second time around, it was easier to have the conversation. I wasn't sure I would get much sympathy from a man, but he tells me he completely understands it. Again he was curious, but about different things. Did I have a fem name? How did I choose it? Did I go out dressed to clubs to meet others?

I told both of my friends about this blog, and they have both visited. It seems not to have affected my working relationship with either of them, and they don't seem to have lost any of the respect for me which I think they both had to start with. Both of them, independently, have said they would like to meet Vivienne, and I will be sure to let you know if this happens.

Whether I tell anyone else, or whom I tell, I am still not sure. I already feel much better about myself. Both my friends have been able to see the positive side, the funny side of crossdressing, which are aspects of it which I haven't really been able to enjoy much. What I was looking for, most of all, and got from both of those wonderful people, was simple acceptance. Now I no longer feel like I am faking it, at least with those people, and I feel that the closet door has sprung open a little wider.

And to quote the punchline of a very old joke, it's better than bacon.

====
My thanks to Hannah for the lovely portrait of Vivienne. You can check out Hannah's blog here.

You can find the followup to this article here: Faking It- Part Two.


Big Brave Soldier

My recent interview with Treva Askey, a former British soldier who is now transitioning, took place amid my thought processes about transgender people serving in the armed forces. There has actually been quite a lot of discussion about this topic in the press lately.

When I was a child, I was a sensitive boy who cried easily. I remember often being told to be a "big brave soldier". This phrase bristled with me then-- and continues to do so today. My parents were not being cruel: they were simply trying to encourage me to behave in a certain way, which they felt was more appropriate (for the record, it didn't work: I am still a sensitive person and I still cry easily).

Upper lips: stiff

It was clear why they chose this phrase. A soldier is someone who is the archetype of courage, discipline, and moral clarity. It is unspoken, but a soldier, of course, is someone who doesn't struggle with his sexuality, nor with his gender identity.

But, for what it was worth, I realised that, as a child, I was braver than many of my peers in some circumstances. For example, I was untroubled by some things (like big scary bugs) which made others visibly queasy. So this other kid, he can kick a football like a cannon, but can't pick up a spider: why is he considered braver than me? That seemed unfair.

As I have grown older, I have viewed military people with a mixture of both admiration and fear. Admiration, in that (in the main) I admire what they do, protecting the interests of my country and ensuring that my family and I can sleep safe in our beds without worrying about being invaded or bombed or have our way of life brutally suppressed. But also fear, in that they achieve that by learning how to hurt and kill other people, sometimes with truly dreadful efficiency. I find some military types to be overbearing and intimidating.

You will be familiar with the notion that the military has to "break you down" before they "build you up". Nobody enters the military willing to hurt or kill somebody else. The military needs to remove your inhibitions to cause harm, to hurt, to kill, and it does that very precisely: by subjecting you to gruelling physical challenges, to strict and dehumanising rituals, to harsh and disproportionate punishments. And to make it stick, it dresses this up in very attractive guise: flags and uniforms, medals and heroism, music and pageantry, and intense camaraderie.

Of course, it needs to do these things to make you an effective fighting person. You need to learn that you are less important than the whole, and you need to subsume your will to the orders you need to carry out. The military can't work as a democracy: ("Excuse me, sergeant? I don't really think advancing on that hill is a very good idea, when you think about it". "You're quite right, private. Raise your hands if you think we should all go to the pub instead").

Autumn Sandeen

The military also needs to inculcate a very powerful sense of moral clarity. We are the good guys. They are the bad guys. They are not like us: they don't look like us, they don't talk like us, they eat weird foods, they don't worship like us (and in any case, God is on our side). In fact, they're not really human, and that makes it OK to get rid of them.

I am certain that being in the military would cause intolerable psychological harm to me. I prize my individuality extremely highly. My inability to take orders from stupid people would require that I be brutalised until I gave up resisting. And I cannot contemplate the person they would "build me up" into becoming.

But (as I said elsewhere), that's not to say I would have nothing to offer my country. Give me a gun and put me in a uniform, and I would be useless. On the other hand, put me in Bletchley Park with the other misfits, and we will win the war for you. To put it bluntly, I don't need to be broken down before I can be useful! (And my loyalty to my country is not in question).

It is this ability of the military to assign us and them which troubles me. If you are not 100% with us, you are against us. It makes it easy for people in the military who are not quite like "us" to be rejected and brutalised. And who is not quite like "us"? Well, homosexual and transgender people are a good place to start. Private Barry Winchell was bullied and eventually murdered by one of his comrades for dating a male-to-female transwoman.

Discharged for transitioning: Sage Fox

We all know of course, that a man who falls in love with another man (or a man who thinks he was born a woman) is somehow soft, somehow effeminate, somehow morally twisted, and therefore prone to cowardice and treachery. We can't have that in the military. First of all, a man needs to be a real man with no hint of femininity. Second of all, imagine the effect on morale if you are constantly on your guard in case your buddy wants to molest you sexually instead of guarding your back. The solution, of course, is to keep all those queers and gays and trannies out.

These arguments are obviously flawed. The reason is that there are (and have always been) gay and trans people in the military (we can start with the Chevalier D'Eon!). They have in many cases served with distinction, shown great valour, and have sometimes been highly decorated. So much for their intrinsic weaknesses. Second, those reports of soldiers sexually abusing their comrades just haven't materialised. It turns out that your gay buddy is every bit as interested in surviving the conflict alive as you are, and he has no more interest in sexually molesting you than you have of him. So morale hasn't suffered. The military hasn't collapsed amid a shower of pink sparks.

There are hints that the tide is beginning to turn. This article isn't big enough to explore the US military, where acceptance of gay people is on the rise. Instead, it's about trans people, where acceptance lags quite a long way behind. This excellent article in the New York Times by Julia Baird reports that 20% of US trans people have served in the military. This is borne out by my personal experience corresponding with other transgender people. In addition to the military, there are plenty of others who have served in the police and other "masculine" occupations.

Baird: Nine percent of transgender people who have served in the American military report being discharged because of being transgender or gender nonconforming. Almost all of the rest stay quiet for fear of harassment or abuse.

A Harvard study published last year found that most transgender military personnel in America are white, educated and middle-aged. And most eventually transitioned from male to female. It also found that 20 percent of transgender people had served in the military — double the rate of the general population. (There is a theory that many seek “hypermasculine” experiences to suppress their desire to be female.) A University of California survey found almost all — 97 percent — were not able to transition until after they left the service.

And she quotes a female-to-male serviceman whom she identifies only as Ryan:

Ryan: I wear an American uniform and I represent a country supposedly defined by liberty and equality. But my allies are welcome to serve in a way that has most certainly just cost me my livelihood. If these countries’ soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines can serve openly and authentically as transgender women and men, why can’t I?

Still serving: Cate McGregor

And serving officer Captain Sage Fox writes:

Fox:I'm a transgender woman and an Army Officer. I want what everyone who cares about our military and our country should want: The freedom to live our lives in peace, raise our children in safety, and live according to our personal and collective ideals. Without these, what ARE we fighting for?

The first military transwoman I heard of was Jan Hamilton in her famous documentary Sex Change Soldier. Jan served in an elite Special Forces unit, and there is a short sequence in the documentary which shows some of the comments she received from her former comrades after she came out. They are unbelievably painful and hurtful. At the time of this documentary, it wasn't possible to transition and remain serving in the British army, although it now is.

But the second had a slightly more hopeful story. Lieutenant Colonel Cate McGregor came out while serving as a senior (and decorated) officer in the Australian Army. However, her commanding officer refused to accept her resignation when she tendered it, and refuted her claim that she was bringing embarrassment to his office. Although McGregor has continued to serve, she describes the "drumbeat of personal abuse" she has suffered since coming out, and also talks of difficulty explaining things to her wife.

Warrior Princess: Kristin Beck

And most recently, highly decorated US Navy SEAL and transwoman Kristin Beck has published her autobiography, Warrior Princess. Beck is literally festooned with decorations. Her Wikipedia article speculates that its publication has encouraged US Defence officials to reconsider their policy about trans people serving in the military, and Una at TransasCity mentions a study which shows that it would have few negative consequences (although Una points out that the study cannot be considered unbiased, commissioned as it was by billionaire transwoman Jennifer Pritzker-- herself a former Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army). This doesn't seem to be the same study which Julia Baird mentions above. In any case, you can read the whole report here. Most recently, Chuck Hagel, the incumbent US Secretary of Defence, has recommended that the US policy of not allowing transgender people to serve should be reviewed.

Which countries allow people to transition and still serve? Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Israel, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. (If you know of any others, please let me know). And of course, my home of New Zealand, which was, I am delighted to say, recently judged the most tolerant of LGBT servicemen and women in an international study (the Brits came joint second). Nonetheless, I suspect that, in general, the bar isn't set very high for this particular contest!

From my own perspective, it seems encouraging that one can survive a couple of decades of military service, and it doesn't grind out all your femininity, all your sensitivity, as many of the above people have shown.

In the grand scheme of things, this is all a very small problem. As far as I can judge, although Australia permits transition while serving, there seem to be only six people to whom this currently applies. And Wikipedia's list of transsexual or transgendered people who have served in the military is pitifully small. Nonetheless, for those few, it's a very big deal indeed, and (as with other areas) I suspect what we see is only the small tip of a very large iceberg.

For those still serving in painful silence, coming out and finally being true to themselves may call for another manifestation of the "big brave soldier".

My thanks to Melissa for drawing my attention to the New York Times article.

For my exclusive interview with Jan Hamilton, now Abigail Austen, click here.

===
Addendum: 14th September 2016

As of the 1st July 2016, the US has lifted its ban on transgender people serving openly in the military. The BBC carries the story here.

Alex Reid

Imagine you are a crossdresser. You meet and then marry a woman who is gorgeous, sexy, glamorous and adventurous. You reveal your secret to her, and she is thrilled: not only does she dress you, but she celebrates your fem side and enjoys making love to you dressed. How does that make you feel?

Masculine: Reid

Alex Reid is not short of masculinity. Handsome and chiselled, he is a mixed martial artist and cage fighter (though, seemingly, not a very good one). He has also been a bit-part actor. He shot to fame in the UK when he found himself dating a woman called Katie Price, whose stage name is "Jordan", in 2009. Here he is as he would like you to think of him. His Wikipedia article contains a single line about his crossdressing, and his personal website, nothing at all (unsurprisingly).

Price is a former topless model, whose career has included modelling, fashion and beauty, television and media, and writing books about herself.

Price is no airhead with big boobies. She is shrewd, ruthless and successful, having negotiated the treacherous waters of media celebrity for many years. According to Wikipedia, she is now worth over 40 million pounds.

Feminine: Jordan

At the time they got together, Price was splitting up from her former husband, singer Peter Andre. Andre released the single Mysterious Girl in 1996, and wowed teen audiences with his famous "washboard stomach", before disappearing without trace, until he was washed up on the celebrity career resurrection show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! in the UK, in 2004. Down in that jungle, amid the bugs, the bush tucker, and the humiliation, love blossomed between Price and Andre.

After the show finished, they not only married, but became reality TV sensations, starting a whole franchise of programmes about their personal lives. We learned, at least at first, that Andre seemed actually to be quite a nice bloke. In any case, it relaunched his career very successfully. In a breathless moment of schmaltz, Price and Andre even released their own cover version of A Whole New World, the love song between Aladdin and Princess Jasmine. They had two children together, whose names they seemingly chose by picking letters at random from the Scrabble bag.

When the relationship came (inevitably) crashing down, the whole country was in on every detail of the separation. Depending where your sympathies lay, one could buy T-shirts, with "Team Peter" or "Team Katie" on them, to show the world whose side you were on. In other words, all eyes were on Katie Price, and who her next swain was going to be. Practically nobody had ever heard of Alex Reid, but suddenly he was being photographed on red carpets next to Price, and setting gossip columnists a-flutter.

Roxanne: seriously?

It didn't take long for things to hot up. Reports began to emerge that Alex Reid was a transvestite, whose secret alter-ego was "Roxanne". But all was not lost. Not only was Price untroubled, she seemed positively to relish having a transvestite for a boyfriend.

Contact Music: Katie Price has vowed to stand by boyfriend Alex Reid, despite revelations he is a cross-dresser. The glamour model insists she has no plans to dump the cage fighter over his feminine alter-ego 'Roxanne' and says they are very happy. She said: "We're very much together."

It was at this point that I started to take an interest. Initially upset that he had been outed, Reid seemed to calm down, when Price allowed him access to her enormous collection of clothing, cosmetics, wigs and other feminine accoutrements. She described it enthusiastically here on the Graham Norton Show:

Price: When he told me, I'm like, Oh my God, I gotta dress you up. In my dressing room I got wigs, eyelashes, everything. I went: you are perfect, you're my girl, so please let me do you up, please let me do you up. And he's like, hang on a minute, this is a bit weird, I'm not used to a girl saying "let me do you up", 'cause normally it's a private thing he does. But I'm well into it, it doesn't bother me.

Awww.... matching outfits!

Price is not simply feminine: she is uber-feminine. Everything is just a little more: the eyes, the boobs, the teeth, the tan, the hair, the lashes, the lips. This is all a carefully cultivated image, and the whole package, for me, teeters on the very brink of attractiveness, just above the cliff of grotesque. In addition, she is confident, powerful, and used to discussing her personal life in public.

Norton: Have you had sex with Roxanne?
Price: Of course! Call me strange, call me weird, whatever.
Norton: So when you're with Roxanne, are you... two women, or are you sometimes the man?
Price: I boss him about. He becomes quieter.
Guest: Can I ask, is there a bit of leather involved, and a whip?
Price: Honestly, you name it, he's been there, done it. Honestly, anything goes with him. I'm having such a fun time.

Faced with this level of approval, it was only a matter of time before we saw Roxanne publicly, and here they are, Jordan and Roxanne, in matching gold outfits, at the launch of one of Price's several autobiographies, in 2009. Price was reported to have ordered designer dresses to be specially made in Reid's size.

Getting his Rox off: Reid

So let's just pause here for a moment. What's going through Alex's mind? First, he is married to a woman who is considered to be one of the most desirable in the country, to say nothing of wealthy. Second, he seems to have entered transvestite nirvana: not only does Price accept his transvestism, she embraces it enthusiastically, and provides him with a level of access to feminine accoutrements which must be almost unparalleled. Third, Reid has gone from being a relatively unknown person to being one of the most famous faces in the country. This interview with the Guardian seems to get a very clear picture of him, without even mentioning crossdressing.

It seems quite understandable to me that all of this would be a bit of a shock; something quite difficult to deal with. And unfortunately, Reid just wasn't equipped to handle Price and her ruthless career machine. He was, unfortunately, merely a pawn.

It wasn't long before cracks started to show. Tabloids spoke of Price's disappointment that Reid was unwilling or unable to have a baby with her. There were reports of him having sex with other men as Roxanne, and the relationship shattered apart after barely one year.

It won't surprise you in the least that Price has continued to manipulate the media in her own interests. Price wrote it all down in a book, Love, Lipstick and Lies, published in 2011, excerpts from which made it into the popular press. Sex with cross-dressing Alex Reid was obscene, depraved and left me frightened, roared the Mirror.

Price: Think of the most disturbing porn you could imagine, and times that by ten. Only then are you getting close to what I witnessed and what Alex wanted me to join in with. I’ve tried a few things in my time, but I’d never before f***** a man dressed up as a woman who happened to be my husband. I felt as if I was crossing a line, going to a dark place where there were no boundaries, where there was no normal.

I just hope the poor girl can somehow get over it and just get on with her life.

Reid all about it!

I feel extremely sympathetic to Alex Reid. He is, without doubt, an autogynephilic transvestite. He wants what we all want; to dress freely, to enjoy it, and to have fun. At first, it must have been breathtaking, being dressed by Katie Price and having her order designer gowns in his size. And yet, we all look in the mirror and feel we are not as beautiful on the outside as we feel on the inside. How much more cruel is that comparison, when the face beside you is that of Katie Price?

And what about the effect on his sense of self, his manhood, when the press were calling him "Mr Katie Price" and he was known for nothing other than being her plus one? That must be pretty hard to handle. And what about those outfits? They were (almost certainly) chosen by Price for maximum impact; he would probably have looked very strange in almost any feminine garb, but careful wardrobe and cosmetics can be amazing. On the other hand, these two outfits, in which he was pictured publicly, are just dreadful. No wonder that, in every picture I've seen, he looks ill-at-ease. Partly that's because he wasn't dressed as Roxanne, he was dressed as Jordan, which is something that few women (and far fewer men) can actually pull off.

In another universe, the public acceptance of Jordan's transvestite husband would simply be mandated by her celebrity. There would be no arguing against it. Left a little longer, and it would have been downright cool. I can see young male wannabees shaving their legs and squeezing into those skimpy outfits to impress their girls. I had genuinely hoped these events would be a step towards public acceptance of crossdressing. But not in this universe.

And what do you do, when you open yourself up to someone you love about crossdressing, and they hurt you deeply? You purge, and you purge good.

Digital Spy: The cage fighter has apparently vowed never to dress up as Roxanne again after suffering emotional abuse when Price revealed his secret to others and made him dress in drag publicly for her book launch in 2009. According to The Sun, Reid told a friend: "Roxanne is dead and it was Katie who heartlessly exposed her. She murdered her. She is evil and she will pay."

I think this particular choice of language, with violent metaphors, points to deep emotional suffering. I do not doubt Reid never wants to dress again, but I do not doubt that he eventually will.

 

Katie Price is currently in another marriage, but will probably get divorced in the next month or so if she plays to form. Reid had a daughter with another glamour model, Chantelle Houghton, but the word on the street is that they have separated too.

Meanwhile, Reid is back pretending to be a real man's man once again-- but for how long?

Female Bodybuilding

I was going to include this topic in my post on Androgyny, but the more I read about it, the more I thought it was worthy of a post by itself.

I am supportive of women's equality with men in every arena. Female police officers, firefighters and soldiers wouldn't provoke the least reaction in me. Likewise, I am supportive of women's equality in the intellectual fields: science, academia and politics. But, I must admit, I find female bodybuilding to be a puzzle.

Something inside so strong?

Let's take men's bodybuilding first, and in a Darwinian sense. If we take mammals as a whole, males demonstrate (and in some cases prove) their reproductive suitability to females by physical prowess: by jousting with other males. Nature tends to have equipped males with more powerful musculature; a stronger frame; bigger teeth, tusks or horns; and with a tendency to aggression which includes a willingness to fight. From a female's point of view, it makes sense to mate with the alpha: his genes will tend to make the offspring stronger and more robust; more able to fight off predators, more able to withstand harsh conditions, and in their turn, more likely to pass on their genes to their own offspring.

Humans are exempted from none of this. Until the last couple of centuries or so, human reproductive success still favoured physical robustness, and our leaders tended to be great big lads who were handy with a sword. Speaking as a physical weakling, I like to think that we are getting to the point where we can recognise other measures of reproductive success, such as intelligence ("Brainy is the new sexy").

So I can understand why men want to compete at trials of physical strength. Rugby, for example, is a ritualised form of warfare, where the sides are deliberately matched, and the blades and cudgels left out, but the aggression, the grappling, and the testosterone persist. Other football variants permit different quantities of physicality, though the basic premise remains. In part, men are driven to compete by their genes; people who cheer from the sidelines are competing vicariously, and their emotional involvement can be dramatic and intense.


 Bodybuilder Debi Laszewski in 2011

We call it "brute strength" because we tend to associate great human physical strength with coarseness, animal behaviour, and a lack of finesse or intelligence (as in the phrase "brute force and ignorance"). None of this is necessarily true, of course.

Bodybuilding is not entirely about strength, but about display; the tanned, waxed, oiled skin; the deliberate poses and choreography; and the delineation of every last fascicle and fibre of the musculature (and what is it with those veins?). There is a clear difference between the physique of the bodybuilder and that of the weight lifter. But for me, bodybuilding is all about masculinity, and the display of physical strength is a very masculine trait. And they are not judged on their strength or athletic prowess, but merely their appearance.

Enter the women. According to the Wikipedia article, female competitive bodybuilding only really got going in the last 30 years, and is on the rise. Female bodybuilding competitions are now routinely staged alongside male bodybuilding competitions, although the prize money is approximately 1/10 as much.

Women: muscling in?

Female bodybuilders may claim that they are attempting to achieve a balance of athleticism, fitness, flexibility and strength, rather than simply to bulk up with beef. Bodybuilder Debi Laszewski comments: I believe I have an incredible amount of mature muscle on my frame and, that said, a balanced physique. I also try to maintain my feminine lines.

Has she managed this?

Afghanistan and Malaysia have banned female bodybuilding outright. And some female bodybuilders use anabolic or androgenic steroids as a way of increasing their muscle mass. Steroids bulk you up all right, but also threaten fertility and can produce masculinising side-effects, including deepening of the voice and male-pattern baldness.

That rigid diet and punishing exercise regime, designed to cut out body fat and replace it all with lean muscle, inevitably causes breasts to shrink and all but disappear. Female bodybuilders either need to accept that, or get breast implants.

In 1992, concerned that female bodybuilders were too muscular, the International Federation of Body Builders attempted to feminise the sport by introducing rules which penalised excessively muscular contestants. Later, in 2005, the IFBB introduced the controversial "20% rule", which was "that female athletes in Bodybuilding, Fitness and Figure decrease the amount of muscularity by a factor of 20%". The memo stated that the request "applies to those female athletes whose physiques require the decrease". It seemed that even bodybuilders thought the women were getting too big.

A picture of vulnerability?

So what do I think about all this? First, back to the men. I can understand the idea of a man wanting to be big and strong, and to look big and strong. On the other hand, for me, it isn't aesthetically pleasing in the least: I think those inflated physiques look unattractive and off-putting. Though I learned today, with a certain weariness, that there is a sexual fetish associated with touching or rubbing the bodies of highly-muscled people, and that some impecunious bodybuilders submit to this as a means of supplementing their income.

For a woman, then, it's hard to think of anything conventionally feminine about bodybuilding at all. I totally understand the pursuit of health, tone, flexibility and fitness, but to me, this path leads to the physique of a rower, rather than a bodybuilder. Women who bodybuild have the distorted physiques of the men, but in addition, they have the lipstick, the heels, and the long hair (and sometimes the obvious breast implants). This juxtaposition of masculine and feminine features sometimes makes these women very strange to look at indeed. It's worth taking a look at this page, in which celebrity photographer Martin Schoeller takes portraits of female bodybuilders (I have borrowed two for this post). Schoeller writes: I am trying to show the vulnerability that I see and feel in the subjects when I am with them, to get to the complex emotions behind a mask of extreme physical expression.

What are those complex emotions? What form does that vulnerability take? What are those women searching for? How do they feel about themselves? I don't have those answers; you will need to find your own.

Strong Arms of the Ma

My final point is this. If women want to compete in bodybuilding, and they want to bulk up their bodies in this way, they should be allowed to do so unfettered. In the statement above from the IFBB, what they were really saying was "some of you are too big and too muscular; you need to cut back by 20%. Who does this apply to? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? You know who you are". I couldn't find the full statement to read, so there may have been explanations, but perhaps their own sport's governing body was telling bodybuilding women not to get too muscular. Not, perhaps, for health and safety reasons, or other understandable, if wearisome, competition regulations. No, just perhaps because even the sport's own governing body thinks female bodybuilding is unladylike.

For a different but related subject, I refer you to my article about Women with Beards.

Addendum: 30th December 2014

Over the last couple of months or so, this post has become one of the most popular on this blog. On the other hand, nobody has left a comment for ages. If this subject interests you, or upsets you, or arouses you, please leave a comment for discussion.

I came across an episode of The Simpsons entitled Strong Arms of the Ma, in which Marge gets mugged. As a result of feeling vulnerable, she takes up bodybuilding to feel stronger and safer. Though she builds a lot of muscle, unfortunately the steroids cause her to become aggressive and mean. The critics' response to the episode was largely negative. When done well, The Simpsons is a powerful and insightful parody, but it doesn't look like they hit the sweet spot with this episode.