Dina’s Diner September 20, 2021

WHY? JUST WHY?

Interviewee Emily.

Sometimes the most basic questions are the hardest to answer. I thought of this when I stumbled across an article on a site called All About Crossdresser. It was headlined Crossdressers Talk About Why They Like to Crossdress. The editors asked 20 crossdressers from around the world why they do what they do. It appeared on July 15, 2021.

Here are excerpts of some of the responses:
• I crossdress because it is the only way I can truly express my feminine side. It gives me a break from my normal life and I love looking in the mirror and admiring how beautiful I can be! (Heather).
• To escape the stress of everyday life. And I just feel the urge to wear women’s clothes. (Adri).
• Becoming Tina is heaven to me, a complete escape. It’s more than sexual – I have a separate female personality who really needs to live a feminine life. (Tina).
• Like most crossdressers I have talked to, it is a turn on or a feel-good feeling. It’s not one bit about who I want to be. For me crossdressing is momentary, it is not someone I want to be full time. So yeah, it is strictly for fun. (Emily).
• It’s an expression of a part of me. It is something that I didn’t decide. It belongs to me since my birth. (Melania).
• I crossdress as a form of expression and to a certain extent escapism. I am perfectly happy with my life as a straight male and have no desire to transition nor do I consider myself trans. (Allison).

The responses reflect the crossdressing (rather than full-time trans) viewpoint. Most focused on the surface feelings rather than deeply felt gender dysphoria. Reading through the responses I identified with some more than others. The overwhelming feeling I was left with was that I don’t know exactly why I was compelled to crossdress as a young person nor why it’s persisted for all these years. I think for most of us it is an amalgam of deeply personal motives that almost defy explanation other than rather standard cliché expressions. We often take elements of our lives for granted or without self-examination. What are your thoughts on the reasons why YOU crossdress?

MAN UP! OR ELSE

I saw an interesting report on the NextShark.com news and cultural site headlined China Bans ‘Sissy,’ Effeminate Men from TV. The report appeared on September 3, 2021. Other news agencies picked up the edict from China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA).

Chinese boy band singer.

According to the report, the government wants broadcasters to eliminate effeminate men who don’t “follow macho male stereotypes.” NextShark’s reporting continued (with direct quotes from the agency’s announcement), “The measure is part of the eight-point regulation plan the broadcast regulating body has set to ‘clean up’ the entertainment industry. The agency urged broadcasters to “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics.” The NRTA reportedly referred to effeminate men using the insulting slang term “niang pao,” which means “girlie guns.” While the ban includes male pop stars who wear makeup, it’s unclear what the other guidelines are to determine whether a man looks “effeminate” or “macho.” Male Chinese pop stars with effeminate looks and demeanor have long been criticized for not inspiring young men to be “masculine enough.””

The Chinese government already sanctioned (for other reasons) a couple high profile celebrities who ran afoul of the authoritarian regime. The report noted that, “Broadcasters have also been warned against promoting stars flaunting their wealth online, individuals engaging in entertainment gossip, programs featuring children of celebrities and social media influencers described as “vulgar.” A week or so ago, the Chinese government proposed rules to limit the hours children could play computer games. As early as 2018, the Chinese state media outlet Xinhua decried the prevalence of “sissy-pants” imagery that it said was “hurting the national image.”

The new government announcement is only directed at media outlets and does not impose restrictions on individual expressions of “sissy” or “effeminate” behavior but the intent is clear that the regime does not approve.

BRETMAN ROCKS THE DRESS

Bretman Rock rocks Aaliyah’s dress.

Another news item on Nextshark.com caught my eye recently when I saw this headline: “Bretman Rock cried when he was told he could wear Aaliyah’s 2000 VMA dress for 2021 VMA’S. The item appeared on September 13, 2021″.

Bretman Rock? Don’t worry if you don’t recognize the name. I had to look him up even after reading the article. Bretman is a 23 year old social media personality and reality TV star. He’s one of the many (it seems) young men who do makeovers on themselves and post them to various online sites. I looked at his Instagram page and – aside from the gender-bending cosmetics and fashions he affects – he has a heckuva set of sculpted abs no matter what else is going on with him.

The quick story on the dress is that Roberto Cavalli who designed the tiger print dress for the late hip hop artist Aaliyah allowed Bretman to wear it to the recent VMA show that was happening close to the 20th anniversary of Aaliyah’s untimely demise in a plane crash.

The thought I had when I saw this piece of pop culture was what if we all had a chance to wear some famous celebrity dress or outfit. I’m talking now about real dresses rather than costumes or fantastical creations. For this mental exercise, we can forget about our sizes and builds and just imagine us in the original creations. How about Bjork’s famous “swan” dress? JLo’s daring decolletage dress? Elizabeth Hurley’s terrific “clothespins” dress? Raquel Welch wore a cleavage cantilevering gown as an Oscars presenter in the ’70s. There are probably dozens of more recent examples as red carpet entrances have gone spectacular and increasingly exhibitionist. You may have some favorites in mind. Why should only Bretman Rock have all the fun?

DRAG QUEENS ON THE ITINERARY

I saw a Reuters news service report about a walking tour through some of Hong Kong’s more unusual tourist “attractions.” The article was headlined “Drag Queens and Refugee Stories: Touring the Real Hong Kong.”The article appeared on September 10, 2021.

Takes balls to do drag in Hong Kong.

I know. A lot of stories from China in this Diner installment. I’ll have to put Moo Goo Gai Pan on the menu or something.

The story behind the Reuters report are more restrictions imposed by the Beijing government on all sorts of activities. Walking tour guide Michael Tsang usually led tours with a political focus and explained the politics of inequality and repression until the government cracked down. “So he shifted to attract local residents with activism tours, including the city’s LGBT movement and refugee community. During an August tour he took 30 people to a drag show with a person called “Miss Tina Ugly Hair” who styles herself after singer Christina Aguilera.”

That led me to look into the drag scene in Hong Kong. It’s quite active, apparently. I found several articles online about drag queens, drag bars, participants in RuPaul’s Drag Race, and plenty of photos of the queens, of course. Hong Kong is a city of 7.5 million souls and until recently enjoyed most of the freedoms of the west under Beijing’s “One Country, Two Systems” policy.

Another article in the South China Morning Post reported, “In the past, drag performances might have been heavily stereotyped and considered taboo. But today a more open-minded generation of Hongkongers can appreciate drag as an art form, and the idea of performing in drag has been normalized.”

I wondered if the reported sanctions against “sissy culture” reported above might have a damaging effect on Hong Kong’s lively drag scene. With drag shows and bars being still somewhat “underground” they may be safe from the kind of constraints being placed on boy bands and media celebrities. Time will tell, I suppose.

WHO’S ZOOMIN’ WHO?

Zoom dysmorphia.

I heard Harvard Medical School dermatologist Dr. Shadi Kourosh being interviewed on National Public Radio recently. The topic was something called Zoom Dysmorphia. I also found a written article about it on the Wired.com website dated August 30, 2021.

Here is how the Wired article explained Zoom Dysmorphia: “In the age of Zoom, people became inordinately preoccupied with sagging skin around their neck and jowls; with the size and shape of their nose; with the pallor of their skin. They wanted cosmetic interventions, ranging from Botox and fillers to facelifts and nose jobs. [Dr.] Kourosh and colleagues surveyed doctors and surgeons, examining the question of whether videoconferencing during the pandemic was a potential contributor to body dysmorphic disorder.” The term dysmorphia is related to a real or imagined deformity or displeasing appearance of a body part.

Dr. Kourosh told NPR that many people who participate on Zoom conferences became self-conscious about their appearance based on their camera’s image being displayed for other conference participants. She made the point that a Zoom (or other type) of conferencing camera is like a “funhouse mirror.” It is usually pointed from an unflattering angle and physically much closer than another person would stand in normal conversation. The result is that noses look bigger, jawlines appear jowly, double chins appear exaggerated. She also said that people on conference calls are usually frowning in concentration or slouching rather than how we normally look at ourselves in mirrors – relaxed, staring straight ahead, and perhaps smiling. The bottom line: most people are not looking their best on video conference calls.

Cosmetic surgeons report seeing people who want to change their appearance based on their unhappiness with video imagery. Many also noted that Snapchat and Instagram posters who regularly use enhancement filters for their online selfies become unhappy with their actual, real appearance. That phenomenon is called Snapchat Dysmorphia.

Crossdressers, I think it’s safe to say, are pretty concerned with their real image and their photographic images. Several Diners ago I had an item about how to take better selfies that included techniques to improve images by defeating certain common problems identified by Dr. Kourosh. We have enough problems to get past without suffering from Dysmorphia. Y’know, it’s always something.

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Tags: crossdressing, featured, opinion, Transgender

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment