Dina’s Diner goes Digital! Welcome her to TGF

Hello everyone, I am Dina Amberle and I will be contributing items here on a regular basis. I am currently a columnist for LadyLike magazine, writing the Dina’s Diner feature. I have known Joann Roberts and Angela Gardner for many more years than any of us would like to admit. As you may know, Joann and Angela were among the founding members of Renaissance, a group I was active in for sixteen years and where I also wrote a monthly column for the Renaissance newsletter and then magazine for ten years.

So writing about crossdressing, transvestism, transgenderism, drag queens, hosiery fetishists, wannabe cheerleaders, panty raiders, and the occasional normal person is in my blood. Sort of like heroin. And on that pleasant note, let’s begin the Blog…

HI DEF TV

The Associated Press provided an interesting article which I saw in my local paper on December 28, 2006. The rise of high definition television is sending actors, actresses, and makeup artists rushing all rushing around in search of some magic to maintain the illusion of flawless beauty.

As the AP reporter, Janice Littlejohn puts it, “Besides spectacular vistas and shockingly real playing fields, hi-def clarity puts any and all wrinkles, pimples, and pores on display in well-lit bathroom mirror detail.”

The sharp resolution of hi-def tv can make even young actresses look less than perfect – in other words, normally beautiful, rather than unworldly so. For older actors and actresses, the technology is even more frightening. The recently ended holiday shopping season was expected to put more than 33 million hi-def tv’s into American households.

The show technicians are trying to soften the effect through lighting and filtration but there’s only so much they can do behind the camera. Makeup artists are trying to find new ways of blending and airbrushing cosmetics on the faces of stars. The curse of hi-def is that heavily applied cosmetic coverups will show up as clearly as the blemises they are designed to hide.

One suggesetion for tv stars is the one that makeup and clever lighting was created to substitute for: healthy living.

“Regular facials and really good skin care is key. Drinking lots of water, avoiding coffee and cigarettes, exercise, all those things help the skin’s natural glow” said Patricia Murray, a makeup artist with the show Battlestar Galactica. Hey, that’s no fun.
Actress Kat Foster, 28 year old star of Fox’s Till Death show, said “It would behoove everyone to see the real celebrity, wrinkles and all. I think the more human we are, the more attractive we are to the people who watch us.” Apparently she’s never seen Phyllis Diller in hi-def.

I think that we are all familiar with and eternally grateful for the masking effects of modern cosmetics. Crossdressers and trans-people are living in a hi-def world every time we step out in public. There are very few of us who are ready for our close-up, thanks very much, Mr. DeMille. It is some sort of cosmic comeuppance to think that all those beautiful women we see on television are now harboring some of the same fears we live with all the time.

IS THAT A BULLET IN YOUR PANTIES OR ARE YOU JUST GLAD TO SEE ME?

Business Week magazine – you think I read only LadyLike and Transvestite Teasers? – carried an interesting article on December 28, 2006. It was headlined, “Viagra for Women?”

German pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim reported that it may have discovered a female equivalent to popular male drugs for erectile dysfunction. And they did it by accident.

The drug compound was originally developed as an antidepressant but female clinical trial subjects reported a rise in libido while taking the experimental drug. Oddly enough, Viagra for men was also an accidental discovery that came – if you will pardon that expression – from research for a heart drug.

It isn’t clear whether the drug will ever be marketed. More testing and FDA approvals are needed. The most common pharmaceutical treatment for low female libido is testosterone. Irony of ironies. Men have enough desire to get laid that the chemical compound will even work when injected into women.

In case you were wondering, scientific researchers discovered a Viagra-like substance for crossdressers many years ago. They call it stockings.

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment, Transgender Opinion