First sign I was a feminist:
Sitting in church every week, listening to the sermons given by the Priest. Thinking that's what I wanted to be when I grew up (I was maybe 4 at a guess). I thought I'd be able to give really inspiring sermons, shifting people's attitudes and lifestyles for the better. When I worked out I could never be a priest because I was a grrrl, a cold core of anger formed in my heart and Catholicism died a personal death for me. Kids always know what's fair and unfair.
First sign I was a femme:
In that same church, sitting in the same family pew every week, a woman sitting in the pew in front of us had hair so long she could sit on it. I was hungry and transfixed by her hair every week, imagining the day when I would be old enough to own hair as gloriously long myself. (I still do)
First sign I had a life-long boner for gender queers:
I was about 8 and madly, deeply in love with Boy George. I (somehow) knew he wa
s gay, but just didn't care. I'd never seen a more beautiful creature. I collected every magazine, every poster. I slept with a Boy George doll. It feels a leetle creepy now to think of it - it was a Barbie-type of plastic doll, not a rag doll. But it was Boy George! With beautiful painted make up and the colour by numbers suit *sigh*
First sign I was into women:
A childhood spent watching 60s TV show reruns on the afternoon. Ginger Grant (the movie star) from Gilligans Island - the curves, the beehive, the shimmering evening gowns, the sexy music that played whenever she entered a scene. I now get that she was a second-rate Marilyn Monroe impersonator, but at the time....
And Catwoman from the old Batman TV show. Cat suits, claws, growls and purrs, ballet moves, sexy and dangerous in the one combination.
Sitting in church every week, listening to the sermons given by the Priest. Thinking that's what I wanted to be when I grew up (I was maybe 4 at a guess). I thought I'd be able to give really inspiring sermons, shifting people's attitudes and lifestyles for the better. When I worked out I could never be a priest because I was a grrrl, a cold core of anger formed in my heart and Catholicism died a personal death for me. Kids always know what's fair and unfair.
First sign I was a femme:
In that same church, sitting in the same family pew every week, a woman sitting in the pew in front of us had hair so long she could sit on it. I was hungry and transfixed by her hair every week, imagining the day when I would be old enough to own hair as gloriously long myself. (I still do)
First sign I had a life-long boner for gender queers:
I was about 8 and madly, deeply in love with Boy George. I (somehow) knew he wa
s gay, but just didn't care. I'd never seen a more beautiful creature. I collected every magazine, every poster. I slept with a Boy George doll. It feels a leetle creepy now to think of it - it was a Barbie-type of plastic doll, not a rag doll. But it was Boy George! With beautiful painted make up and the colour by numbers suit *sigh*First sign I was into women:
A childhood spent watching 60s TV show reruns on the afternoon. Ginger Grant (the movie star) from Gilligans Island - the curves, the beehive, the shimmering evening gowns, the sexy music that played whenever she entered a scene. I now get that she was a second-rate Marilyn Monroe impersonator, but at the time....
And Catwoman from the old Batman TV show. Cat suits, claws, growls and purrs, ballet moves, sexy and dangerous in the one combination.
If there were sexy butch characters in 60s sitcoms, I just might have skipped a few stages in erotic development.
First sign I was kinky:
Playing Batman and Robin with my two male cousins. It was about the age where for a year or two most grrrls are stronger than most boys. I (of course) was Catwoman. Every time we played, I'd beat them, capture and tie them up, before revealing their secret identities to the world and killing them. They used to complain that this wasn't what was supposed to happen, but somehow it always did.
First sign I was going to be a whore when I grew up:
Finally familiarising myself with the original Monroe - late night movies: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire. I decided having a sugar daddy was better than getting a dreary job or catching myself a husband. Freedom and diamond tiaras! I could never quite work out how to obtain a sugar daddy (and after watching my friends manage the demands and controlling behaviour of theirs, I decided I didn't want one) so regular sex work it was.
5 comments:
hmmm... which was your favourite catwoman??
That would have to be Julie Newmar. Eartha Kitt was more dangerous, but Julie used to be sexier and flirt with/torment Batman more.
Aaaah. *smile* I wanted to be beaten up by Eartha Kitt while she purred at me, and have tormented by Julie Newmar.. that attainable (if you are lucky) unattainability(sp?) has always been alluring to this bear.
Ginger also undid me... purrowl.
When I grew up... I wanted to be the joker... no one ever seems surprised when I say that.. but I got the crazy, not the cool bit.
thanks for asking for comments! interaction is indeed fun. i had to respond to the boy george/gender queer idea. i too loved boy george. so much, that i dressed up as him for my brother's birthday party. i was about 5 or 6 and i was a girl dressing up as a boy dressing up as a girl. at the time i didn't see anything queer about him or that. sometimes i still feel like i am a woman dressing as a man dressing as a woman...
Wife
That's beautiful! I truely think there is so much in common between drag queens and femmes - we have this ironic way of playing with femininity - that invites others to be in on the joke - to get that social gender is constructed. So I often feel very drag queeny myself.
Hunter,
Maybe you need to land in a vatt of acid to embody Jokeresque cool. (or start wearing makeup and loud colours) Unfortunately i saw reruns of Gilligan's Island on TV1 a few years ago. It was terrible. The jokes were unfunny, the canned laughter horrific. It was affecting me so much I was losing the hots for Ginger! Be warned, sometimes you just can't go back.
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