feminine phases?

[Dante]

I wore a dress in Kindergarden, I remember not liking it because I couldn't play on the playground. That was before the truth was revealed. At that point, I just felt a feeling lurking, but didn't know what it was. I also wore a dress to my step-mom's wedding with my dad. Didn't like that either. I hated being a flower girl. I had to stand around for an hour on stage in an ugly dress and fancy shoes, while my evil step-mom married my dad. Horrible day.

[Dennis]

I was another one who fought tooth and nail not to wear a dress. I got forced into it occasionally and I remember once when I was a kid, my mum forcing me into a dress and we went out for dinner. The maitre d' said "and does the little boy want a children's menu?" This, despite the fact that I was wearing a dress. I was on cloud nine. My mother, needless to say, was less pleased.

I used to take jeans to school to change into. My mother never made me wear a dress to school, but she did make me wear girls' pants, which I also hated.

At 14 I did go through a slight femmy phase to try and fit in. Luckily the fashion then was jeans and hoodies, only a little tighter for girls, and makeup. It still felt like drag to me. I quit the makeup and went back to my usual gear fairly quickly. It helped that I liked girls, so there was no desire to try and attract boys.

As an adult, I would sometimes suck it up and wear a women's business suit, which was all I could really bear. Thank god those days are over.

Dennis

[Yochanan]

Re: femmy clothes = drag

I think I kind of felt that way in middle school (I was really into it--colorful tights/fishnets, short skirts that made my best friend tell his mom I looked like a slut, lots of jewelry), and definitely this most recent phase. Maybe that's why I liked it so much. I only ever wore stuff like that to make a statement: "I can do whatever I want!" basically. I always avoided low-cut shirts, though; that was way too far for me. I regret that I couldn't wear that stuff as myself (male). Would've been a lot more remarkable and more fun.

[Scratchy Wilson]

Lucky me my mom never made me wear anything I didn't want to. I wore over-alls and baggy jeans for most of my life. Freshman year I wore a skirt for halloween but it was only on for maybe 30 minutes. Other than that I wouldn't really say I ever dressed very femenine...plus I've always been really bad with the whole matching thing and styles and what-not.

[Scotty72]

I feel kind of lucky, my mom never forced dresses or pink on me.  My mom told me a while ago, when I was about 4 I apparently got a mind of my own, and if she put a dress on me I'd take it off and run around naked.  I guess I did it in public once or twice... ooops?  But for funerals or weddings I HAD to wear a dress or a skirt.  I could live with that, people wernt dropping like fly's or anything.  The rest of the time my parents let me go to church in a nice shirt and dress pants like other boys did.

I wont lie though, when I was 7 or 8ish, I had these really pink and girly cowboy boots I LOVED to death.  I think my girly side died when I grew out of those boots.  I did try girl pants around 7th grade, but I just couldn't get used to the tight material and the really small pockets, lol.

[Arch]

I did try girl pants around 7th grade, but I just couldn't get used to the tight material and the really small pockets, lol.

O hideous
Girly poches,
Useless for anything
But string,
Rubber bands,
Or
A single lonely
Tarnished
Quarter.

[Scotty72]

I did try girl pants around 7th grade, but I just couldn't get used to the tight material and the really small pockets, lol.

O hideous
Girly poches,
Useless for anything
But string,
Rubber bands,
Or
A single lonely
Tarnished
Quarter.

Lol, Exactly.  Never understood the point of even having pockets there if you couldn't stick anything in them.

[Arch]

Lol, Exactly.  Never understood the point of even having pockets there if you couldn't stick anything in them.

I had to wear those pants...Levi's and pants with real pockets weren't acceptable to my mother. But I refused to carry a purse and managed to get by for quite some time with one of those three-ring zippered bags for pencils and things. (This was before backpacks became popular.) Eventually I resigned myself to carrying a purse, especially after I started bleeding. But you should have seen my face the first time I carried one...I was so embarrassed.

One day in ninth grade, I got revenge of sorts. We had one of those "slave days." I think you had to pay a small amount of money to the ASB or whatever--I'm not sure--but then you could take a "slave" of the opposite gender for the day.

The boys went first. The guy I liked made me carry all of his books (plus my own, of course) all day. The day after, I made him carry MY books--and my purse. On his shoulder, just like a regular girl would.

He was mortified and complained all day about it. "God, this is SO embarrassing," he kept moaning. And all I could think was, "Now you know how I feel." 

[Dante]

A SLAVE day? Is that legal? I've never heard of that before.   

[Scotty72]

One day in ninth grade, I got revenge of sorts. We had one of those "slave days." I think you had to pay a small amount of money to the ASB or whatever--I'm not sure--but then you could take a "slave" of the opposite gender for the day.

Wow!  What kind of school did you go to?  Sounds like an Okay place to me 

[Arch]

A SLAVE day? Is that legal? I've never heard of that before.   

I can't remember if that's what it was actually called (it might have had a more congenial name), and I can't remember the rules (long time ago). But, yes, you could pretty much ask the other person to do anything within reason, as I recall. Don't know if it was legal...

Wow!  What kind of school did you go to?  Sounds like an Okay place to me 

It was just a run-of-the-mill middle-class suburban junior high school, not particularly progressive. I mean, they refused to let me take shop and forced me to choose between sewing and cooking. I unwisely chose sewing and spent the entire semester slaving over a vile wrap-around skirt that my mother forced me to wear to a restaurant at the end of the semester. One of the few times in my teen years that she actually made me wear a skirt/dress. "You made it, so you're going to wear it." I resisted, she insisted, she won and gave me the silent treatment all night. In fact, she wasn't even speaking to my dad that night, either, although she was immensely polite to the waiter. Can't let strangers know about our dysfunctional family, can we, Mother Dear?

I chose that stupid skirt project because the teacher told me it was the easiest thing to make. In fact, she refused to let me make anything else. At the end of the semester, in front of the entire snickering class, she openly criticized my sewing skills, which had not improved one whit, and berated me for choosing such a difficult project. Nasty little...well, never mind. I guess I should have counted myself lucky that by taking a foreign language I escaped taking an entire year of home ec.

Such wonderful memories I have of junior high school. I don't know which was worse, sewing class or the girls' locker room.

[Christo]

Lucky me my mom never made me wear anything I didn't want to. I wore over-alls and baggy jeans for most of my life. Freshman year I wore a skirt for halloween but it was only on for maybe 30 minutes.

yep kinda the same 4 me.  my mom never made me wear dresses. she knew she got a son she wanted me 2 have long hair though. put ribbons on my hair & stuff  but that didnt last long & it aint happenin again

[Scotty72]

I know how you feel about the sewing class Arch.  I took it because my mom and aunt made sewing look easy, so I figured "Hey, easy A+".  Not so much.  I really sucked at it, and all I was doing was a dumb pillow.  My teacher didn't make fun of my crappy skills, but she did make me re-do everything about 20 times before I got it EXACTLY the way she wanted it done.  So the dumb pillow project took me 2 weeks, when everyone else was done in like, 2 days, talk about feeling stupid.
The teacher eventually just told me to never come back to her class room.  I broke just about all of her sewing machines at some point and time, purely on accident 
Unfortunatly she did have to deal with me once more because she was also the teacher for a cooking class.  Lucky for her I was really good at that.  Unlucky for her I still broke everything, lol.

Your teacher sounds like she needed to pull something out of her craw and stick it in her mouth.

My High School did something like the whole Slave Day thing a while ago, but they called it something else because Slave Day was apparently racist.  They had it turned into something stupid like 'Willing Worker' or some crap like that.

[Arch]

So the dumb pillow project took me 2 weeks, when everyone else was done in like, 2 days, talk about feeling stupid.
...
Your teacher sounds like she needed to pull something out of her craw and stick it in her mouth.
...
My High School did something like the whole Slave Day thing a while ago, but they called it something else because Slave Day was apparently racist.  They had it turned into something stupid like 'Willing Worker' or some crap like that.

Now, why couldn't I have made a freakin' pillow? I spent an entire SEMESTER on that stupid worthless ugly skirt. I barely finished it...she told me that if I didn't finish it by the end of the term, I would not get a C in the class. I was mortified...brainy, intellectual me...sewing, typing, and PE ruined my GPA in junior high.

My sewing teacher was a woman of mature years (okay, nearing retirement age) who used to whip up a brand new outfit on Tuesday and wear it to class on Wednesday. We didn't think much of her sense of style--in this respect, I was just like all the girls in the class. But I never did that horrible singsong irony-couched-in-false-praise thing that they used to do: "OH, Mrs. SNIFF! What a BEAU-tiful OUTfit! Did you make it yourSELF?" Mrs. Sniff (not her real name) never seemed to see through it, but it set my teeth on edge every. single. freaking. time.

I can't fault your school for not using the term "slave day." I can well understand why "slave" would be objectionable to a lot of Americans who immediately associate it with racism and past wrongs in this country. But if you take the long view, then slavery is less racist and more nationalist. "Slave" to me in those days (that is, junior high) conjured up America's past but also, for example, the Roman Republic. I mean, in something like a fifty-year period, there were three servile wars, if I'm not mistaken.

(I'm no historian, and my memory is a bit sketchy. Just about everything I know about Rome--which is not much--I learned in the wake of Spartacus many years ago, and my rather cursory research was clouded by my disappointment that Spartacus and Antoninus never got it on in the movie.)

[Nero]

Actually Arch, I was upset that Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis didn't get it on.

Posted on: August 10, 2008, 03:47:55 PMOysters AND snails. 

[Arch]

Actually Arch, I was upset that Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis didn't get it on.

Posted on: August 10, 2008, 03:47:55 PMOysters AND snails. 

HA! One of my favorite catch-phrases. I wish I'd been able to see that scene when I was a kid, although it probably would have been deleted, since I always watched the film on regular broadcast television. So as a kid, I never had the opportunity to be disappointed about that scene. Olivier was very smooth. But I've always had a father-son fixation, so it was Spartacus and Antoninus for me.

Did you ever see Anthony Hopkins when he was being interviewed about his voice work for that scene? Hugely entertaining.

[Nero]

no never seen that one. love that scene though.

[Scotty72]

We didn't get much of a choice, the teacher forced the pillow project on all of us.  Some of the girls wanted to make shirts and the few guys that were in that class wanted to make gun cases, but no, we all had to do pillows.
Iunno, my Aunt and my Mom used to make their own cloths pretty avidly, and you just learned to nod your head and smile and say it looked good.  Sarcasm or not, I still think its better than a direct insult.  Not by much, but still.

I dont know why, but for some odd reason everytime I hear or read the word Slavery my mind automatically goes to an image of some type of BDSM.  Not sure why, because I love history and I know America's terrible past on the subject, and its really no laughing matter or something you just brush off as nothing.  But I guess its just me and my wonderful teenage hormones   

I'm sorry to say I dont know the movie you're talking about, but my condolences on you not getting the story line you wanted.

[Nero]

OMG you don't know Spartacus, Scotty?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOCsNrzlV2k&feature=related

[Scotty72]

OMG you don't know Spartacus, Scotty?

Lol, no, sorry.  I've seen 300, is that any help?