One Fey's Tale - Installment 4

Dressing Up

by middle

only on lifelube

The gorgeous folk pictured here each Friday (Friday is for Faeries) surround me every time I enter faerie space. Their outward expression of freedom, exuberance, and possibility inspires me. Pushing myself to be free and joyful with things like clothes, makeup, and hair has helped me to shed baggage about everything from masculinity and femininity to race and class, from gender identity to fashion and life.

I never thought of myself as someone born with the “gay gene” for style. If I had any fashion sense, it was way out of sync with those around me. Who had the money for all that anyway? Resigned, I became utilitarian about clothes. Every five or ten years, I’d latch on to one uniform or another and replicate it endlessly.

For example, I spent most of the 70s and part of the 80s wearing a uniform of Levis and imprinted t-shirts. Remember those? The kind you bought in a strip mall shop that smelled like steam heat and melted plastic? You chose your shirt, browsed the airbrushed art and cartoon slogans on the wall, and waited while the clerk used a countertop press to iron it on.

In sanctuary, I wondered if I also lacked a critical “queer gene” for glamour and costumes. I certainly didn’t have a clue at my first gathering in spring of 2000. Before I knew it, the day for celebration had arrived and I had failed to plan an outfit. Panicked, I grabbed the rainbow flag hanging by my tent, tied it around my neck like a cape, and slipped on a pair of crayon plaid flannel pajama shorts.

Dancing with me after the ritual, a leather-clad faerie asked, “What are you supposed to be?” Laughing, I responded sheepishly “super fag?” I learned later that there had been not-so-complimentary laughter about the flag among a few of the more experienced faeries present.

I felt of twinge of defensiveness. None of them knew my close friend’s mother had given it to me when he died of AIDS in ‘93. His former lover’s chosen family had given it to him after his AIDS death in ‘85. When I told my faerie informant this, he simply said, “That’s different.”

So the choice was mine. I could recreate the hang-ups that weighed me down in everyday life, or I could revel in the magic of the space and dance down a new path to my own potential.

My attitudes about masculinity were all mixed up. I’d “acted straight” so long, the idea of exploring aspects of my own identity was daunting. I was sometimes attracted to feminine men, but years of living in binary American macho bullshit culture had inspired me to erect barriers and establish crazy rules about my interactions with men. I could intellectualize all day about the way things could or should be, but I failed to internalize any of it.

Did I have the balls to wear a dress? use makeup or nail polish on any day besides October 31st? cut or color my own hair? At one of my first gatherings, I started with my nails. I was uptight, but I hatched a plan.

A brick solid hairy hunk of a man who I fantasized as a lumberjack was camping on the same ridge as me. I asked him to paint my fingernails, and he obliged. Later I did my toenails. My lumberjack turned out to be a spank bottom who does renowned hag drag on the west coast (and occasionally at gatherings.) He was sexy, sweet, loves to laugh, and a hell of a nice guy.

Since then, I’ve learned a few things. I know where nicer thrift stores and some really cheap ones are. I habitually cruise the end caps in chain drugstores for blow out nail polish, temporary hair color, and makeup. I’m picky about glitter (the coarse crap you used with Elmer’s glue in grade school won’t do, dear.) I prefer multiple colors of nail polish – mostly metallic - and a glitter topcoat.

I still don’t love clothes as much as some in my tribe. I still reach for my “uniforms” as often as not. But other times I grab something I just love, without consideration of what anyone else thinks. Often I’ve made it my own with bleach, dye, scissors, sharpies, or paint.

My choices regarding both clothes and men are now infinitely broader. Dressing up has done more for my attitude than my wardrobe. The gay flag accompanied me to each gathering for a number of years until one fall when I “harvested” its energy by throwing into the evening’s fire.

[to be continued]

Read previous installments of One Fey's Tale here.