Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Boy or Girl

Boy or Girl? This is the first question usually asked about a person. In the olden days (I always wanted to say that) there were no ultrascans and high-tech imaging devices to expose your pre-birth winkie so the does-the-apple-have-a-stem question was usually answered at birth. It has been a goal for most of my life to never have that question asked of me again. I'm sure when I was luggage my mom had to dress me in something blue so folks would not make the mistake of calling me a girl, thus incurring offended mother wrath. Still, I was born in the 60's so the 70's were during my formative years and all role-model boys around me had longer hair. Girl hair.

I bring this up because today my wife (who is a verified girl) and I were dining at Chevy's and she noticed a woman/man/thing sitting at a table near us. Debi pointed out that 'Pat' was wearing a white shirt, slacks and a necktie but had pierced earrings. Short, sticky-uppy gray hair, glasses, a bit corpulent (thus concealing boobs or man boobs) and had a high voice. I have 'Pat' tipping the female scale but Debi wasn't too sure. This got me to thinking: is it desirable to be misjudged as a girl?

Well, that depends on who you are and where you are. Our painter has a son named Page. May be Paige. May be Peij. Who knows. When I was introduced to Page, our painter went out of his way to say, "...this is my SON Page." Good thing, too. I saw a pretty, petite, young 12-year-old with shoulder-length, curly, strawberry-blonde hair and delicate features who looked up at me and said, "Hi." I thought, OK, first of all, cut that kid's hair off, get him to go outside and scream a lot to rough up his voice, and maybe even get a marker and fill in a little mustache to butch him up a little. Wow, what a sad situation for this kid. And there is no way he doesn't get butchered at school. Unless he goes to an all-girls Catholic school.

Which brings me to my next point...I remember wanting to dress and act as a girl to see if I would be detected in certain unmentionable social situations. The problem was I was 6'2" and 195 lbs. I don't think I could have pulled it off (so to speak) which accomplished my earlier-stated goal. I remember talking to a girl who wanted to try the same sort of reversal so we discussed binding her breasts (I volunteered, it was the least I could do...) and trying to talk lower and meatier but she just couldn't pull it off. I've decided that nearly none can. When I see a trannie I often identify them as having switched before it becomes aparent. I am not sure, however, if I am right all of the time.

There are several movies that do a poor job of passing the girl off as a boy that I have seen lately. It takes a great deal of suspended reality to get me even close to believing these movies. In each of these movies there is the obligatory 'let-me-see-your-junk' skinny dipping scene where she can't toss the laundry with the chums for fear of flashing the fronts. I guess that is what makes great cinema - I just never buy it. Perhaps this is because I was thwarted as a lad with my huge, um, muscles and bulging, um, pecks. No guys I know like their prom dates to sport stubble.

Oh well, the chick in the restaurant remains a mystery - not her gender, but why she would look that way in the first place...

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