(no subject)

[adrienmundi]

So, I got my hair cut earlier this week. It had been about three and a half months since my last cut, and it was getting harder to do anything with it; my pliable molding creme is impressive, but it's not superglue. Almost every time after I get it cut, I think I look less overtly masculine and kinda femmier, like it does something to my face, or maybe eyes, but... I don't know. Traditionally, short hair is guy-coded, and spiky/messy hair just adds 'sexually unmoored' to the mix, but that's not what I see when I look in the mirror.

What I have noticed is since getting my hair cut this time, I've been getting pretty obvious attention from (presumptively) straight (presumptive) girls, to the extent that I get it, can't mistake it. Individually, this is flattering to amusing, but all together, it gives me pause. Am I miscoding my visual symbols? Am I transmitting metrosexual guy, rather than my patented Something Else? Or is this yet another instance of pure transmission being received through inadequate translating shema*?



*To the cool retro-kids, this is "being like a broken record".

Comments

interesting questions

[k-navit.livejournal.com]

I'm the wrong person to comment on how signals transmit and are supposed to be read and actually are read, since all my "regular" processing stuff has pretty much always been broken, and since people basically have to throw me down to get me to take a hint (and people are not in the habit of throwing me down unless we're wearing boxing gloves, and that right there is probably part of the problem). Also, I don't regularly hang out with very many "straight" "girls." I can think of two outside my family, and one of them really doesn't count in terms of ideology and performativity. So I have no idea why I'm opening my mouth. BUT. I like to think, and maybe this is just because I don't speak to most of the people I am around every day in "real life," that there is, ever so quietly, space happening out there for things to be blurrier than they were before. It's hard for me to give non-academia examples but I really do think there's a possibility that something might flicker "interest/attraction" without first being slotted into a Known Quantity Module. I don't think it happens very often, and I think the slotting is still right on its heels all too often, but I just have a hard time believing that "your patented Something Else" and your attractiveness can always be mutually exclusive, even to "straight" "girls."

Of course, I have had a glass of wine and that tends to make me optimistic, right before it makes me tired, so what do I know.

What DO you see when you look in the mirror?

Re: interesting questions

[adrienmundi]

What DO you see when you look in the mirror?

Damn, no fair asking an on target but really hard question. I'll have to get back to you on that one...

[theinnocence.livejournal.com]

maybe the world is getting to a place where pretty is just pretty across the board, without having to know the gender

yeah, what she said!

[k-navit.livejournal.com]

Wow, see, that is what I was trying to say. Only it took me more sentences to do it worse ;-p

[ineffabelle]

I`m finding this to be true more and more myself... and I have also been getting interesting attention from "straight" girls, while in full-on trans mode.

Also odd: on the subway tonight, two older, elegantly dressed women on the subway were kind of pointing me out and whispering to each other... I figured it was just them being entertained, but when I managed to get past my usual subway introversion and look one of them in the eye she seemed very affirming and positive, as if she were giving me a sign of encouragement.

The only people that ever give me troublesome vibes are teenage thuggish types and executive males, but they`re a related breed. I guess I threaten their simplistic testosterone-amplifying systems.

[adrienmundi]

I'd like to believe this, I really would, but... hearing people talk, seeing how they interact, it seems a rare take on things.

[srl.livejournal.com]

I'll let you know when I see you tomorrow. ;)