skirts with pockets

Guess what my shrink and I spent two and a half hours talking about today?

Pants.

No, seriously. After we got the stuff about how lovely school was going and how I was doing on Lexapro out of the way, we talked about pants. Mostly jeans, really. It started out being about why I wear pants and not skirts, but we got into the specifics: why I buy my jeans at Goodwill and not the mall, how I secretly believe I started that fad for letting out jeans hems so the uneven bleaching pattern showed, why it's stupid that mall stores sell "deconstructed denim" for fifty bucks when I put authentic holes in my ten-dollar pants for free, what "boot-cut" means, and why men buy women's jeans and why women buy men's jeans.

So, how much an hour do my parents pay for this guy to listen to me, again?

I think said shrink is a little too focused on the SEX part of "homosexual," because when I mentioned the whole celibacy thing to him he said "So you desire a SEXUAL relationship with a woman, with ORGASMS and [blah blah blah]?"

"Well... yeah, in the same sense that straight people usually desire a sexual relationship with a member of their preferred gender. But what I'm getting at is that I'd like a MARITAL-type relationship with a woman partner, and marriages usually involve sex."

Seriously, does everyone not get that? It's not just about bumping uglies with a willing nymphet. It's about building long-term, committed, loving relationships with a willing nymphet, with whom I would indeed want to share a sex life. If orgasm was all I was after, I'd marry a vibrator, thankyouverymuch.

I think he's particularly interested in my gender identification, especially in relation to my sister Dymphna. Whenever anything about femininity comes up, he asks me to compare what I do (how I dress, think, whatever) with what I think my sister does, or what she thinks or says about what I do. 'Tis true, we have a long-standing mutual dislike. 'Tis also true that Dymphna could be quite accurately described as traditionally femme, whereas I could quite accurately be described as aggressively androgynous. 'Tis also also true that Dymphna is heterosexual, which I am not. Dymphna is on record as saying that she believes that I am gay because (a) I was despondent over my inability to get men and (b) I was seeking "acceptance." Because, you know, it's so much easier to get laid and/or loved as a LESBIAN in the BIBLE BELT. I am on record (now, at least) as saying that I think Dymphna is on crack.

I eventually explained my entire philosophy of gender with regard to clothing thus (paraphrased):

"Why do I wear pants and not skirts? Because pants are comfortable. I view clothes as a purely utilitarian matter; I wear them to keep from breaking public nudity laws. I don't dress the way I do because it's 'butch,' I dress the way I do because it's comfortable. My mom and sister tend to believe that femininity is something you achieve through clothes and makeup and manners and that kind of thing; I think femininity is something that I have simply by virtue of being female."

So, why do I not wear skirts? Because it's a bitch to find skirts with pockets. I don't carry a purse because I find they're more hassle than they're worth, so I need functional pockets in my clothing. In my years of searching I found exactly two skirts with pockets (that were long enough to make sitting down a non-underwear-revealing affair and loose enough so that the hem didn't cut my stride short). Hence, jeans became my uniform of choice.

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thus saith Liadan at 2:08 AM

7 Comments:

Blogger jen saith at 10/01/2005 6:57 PM...  

dymphna is of course the saint of mental illness. :)

Blogger JJ saith at 10/02/2005 1:40 AM...  

I'm totally with you on the whole panst vs. skirts thing... and the whole pocket thing. I've been trying to buy a nice dressy pants-suit so I can have something nice to wear, but half the time they don't make women's pants with decent pockets... probably because they expect us to carry purses. It's really annoying.

And the whole sex thing... that drives me nuts too. How come the fact that I want to fall in love and get married and have children and build my life with another person (a woman) gets boiled down to sex? When a straight person wants these things it's just normal, it's what people want. When we want them, it's our sex drive. It's weird.

Blogger Come Back Brighter saith at 10/02/2005 6:31 AM...  

I think, when I grow up, I want to be a shrink. Then I can get paid silly-money by parents who are distraught not everyone is exactly the same, and get my patients to explain to me the different types of jeans.

And I'm disappointed being gay isn't just about wanting to bump uglies with a willing nympette.

Anonymous Anonymous saith at 10/02/2005 8:52 PM...  

Recently tagged to your journal..this entry..funny..

Blogger marauder34 saith at 10/02/2005 11:36 PM...  

I'd be more than happy to talk with you once a week about pants, and even sandals, if your parents would like to pay me for it. I'll even charge half what they're paying now.

Blogger malachi trizec saith at 10/06/2005 12:53 AM...  

what about when you were little? 'cause i'm pretty 'butch' looking now (very short hair, combat boots, the whole deal) but i used to want to wear nothing but skirts/dresses up 'til i was like 6 or something... just curious.
cool blog by the way; don't delete the old one.

Blogger Brucker saith at 4/26/2006 9:05 PM...  

I've been seeing a therapist lately, and the last time I saw him we actually spent ten minutes swapping jokes along the lines of:

Q: How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One, but it takes about 20 sessions.

Sure, I started it, but still, I sometimes wonder why I'm bothering, and *voluntarily* at that.

Oh, but that wasn't the real reason I wanted to comment. I remember in high school, I used to come home at the end of the day and watch trashy talk shows a lot. If the topic was something along the lines of "My Daughter Is a Lesbian!" you'd almost always hear the sobbing mother say something like, "But when she was a little girl, I always dressed her up in frilly pink dresses! How could this happen?!"

I realized that everyone has it backwards. It's not dressing "butch" that causes lesbianism, it's the frilly pink dresses. Parents beware!

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