Since my dad is planning on trading my and Ignatius' cars in for new ones, I have had the pleasure lately of going to dealerships and test-driving cars.

Now, the first salesman (Mazda, for the record) was quite nice. Looked me in the eye, didn't seem surprise when my handshake wasn't limp (I sometimes get comments on the fact that I have a grip, which I think is sad), explained all the mechanical components of the engine and whatnot along with all the twiddly little details about the car. (Like the sound system controls on the steering wheel, which I thought was kinda spiffy.) I wasn't familiar with the area the dealership was in so he gave me a route to test-drive which included some twists and bumps so I could get a better idea of how the car handled, which I appreciated.

Last salesman (Nissan) was busy helping a bunch of other people, so left me to poke about on my own after asking if that was okay with me, which it was. I asked him the few questions I had and got pretty straightforward answers. I test-drove it by myself as well, which was kinda nice.

The second salesguy, though, at Toyota, made the mistake of trying to sell me a car as if I were a girl.

I am a young, Caucasian, upper-middle-class female, a demographic which is probably deservedly notorious for not knowing shit about cars. I will freely admit that in general the term "independent multi-link Macpherson suspension" doesn't mean a whole lot to me. However, I'm quite familiar with things like gas mileage, horsepower and torque, and passenger/cargo space. I'm a decently skilled driver, at least on automatic. I actually researched the cars in question online and already knew most of the features and comparisons between them. So when a salesman asks me if I have a color preference as to which car I test-drive, and repeatedly informs me that "we need to put [me] in" a "peppy," "sporty" car, especially after I tell him that I really don't give a flying fuck about appearance (albeit phrased more politely), I get a little irked.

Especially when after I evince knowledge of the capabilities of the car, I'm told that since I've "done my homework" I'll "make someone a good wife someday." I think he caught the Look I gave him after that.

Seriously, he described the car as "peppy" something like six times. I asked him what he could tell me about the engine, expecting to get something about 1.8 versus 2.3 liters maybe, and he described it as "peppy." Fuck "peppy," I'd like something approaching specificity about the damn hunk of metal bits.

I thought about telling him what his mistake was, since I'm sure as hell not buying that car now (not solely as a result of his gross miscalculation of his customer, but it didn't help), but I figure that if he wants to stereotype every chick that walks into the showroom he can reap the results of doing so.

Thing is, there's really nothing in my appearance that would signal that I would appreciate that kind of treatment. I'm wearing plain dark jeans and t-shirts with sneakers and a leather jacket. I don't wear makeup. I had glasses on (which I actually did on purpose for the "intellectual" angle they can provide). I looked him in the eye, asked relatively technical questions and quite bluntly told him what I needed. I don't think I look like the kind of girl who wants a car to match her heels and thinks the lack of makeup mirrors on the sun visors is a dealbreaker. So what compelled him to sell the car to my tits instead of my brain?

Who knows. Maybe my ass is too nice and it looks like I work out.

In retrospect, it's more amusing than angering, since he's the one who's losing a sale. It takes a certain sort of idiocy to make that kind of error, somewhat analogous to the kind needed to try to sell a subscription to Bitch magazine to Pat Buchanan.

Labels: gender

Sad, but true: "Yvonne" said the magic phrase that does a stompy dance all over my hopes: "my boyfriend."

Oh well. Moving on.

While I was home a while back, we were discussing (for whatever reason) the fact that the new puppy needs to be neutered. (Mainly he keeps humping everyone's arm and biting them, and while he's small enough so that kind of dominance behavior's not dangerous it is rather annoying.)

I discovered that I seem to be the only person in my family who can unhesitatingly say the words "penis" and "testicles." There is more than a little irony in this.

Maybe it's lifedrawing class, where you get used to contemplating a nude human in a fairly dispassionate manner, or maybe it's just that everyone at art school has a more relaxed manner towards sexual matters in general, but I don't have a problem with nudity. When I did my nude self-portrait, I was a bit self-conscious hanging it up in class, but while I was actually doing it Maureen and Hans would hang out in the room with me while I was nude (in socks). It was funny when Maureen decided to draw my "shining ass," but it wasn't embarrassing.

On the flip side my family has always had pet terms for genitalia, and sex and genitals are discussed with a sort of giggly hesitation, as if they were something "naughty." They give lip service to the idea that "sex is a beautiful thing" and whatnot, but their ATTITUDE towards sex and nudity says something totally different.

I don't remember ever getting a Sex Talk, or at least anything beyond an explanation of menstruation. Most of my sex education came from classmates and books. I remember being ten or so and reading a book about various stories in a maternity ward, with graphic descriptions of women giving birth or their various sexual ailments. I sort of hid it as if it were a "dirty" book, even though there was nothing actually sexual in it. It was just various stories of women in pregnancy and labor, and I somehow felt like just the fact that it discussed genitalia made it taboo.

On the flip side, I've gotten shit about my more-modest-than-average way of dressing. I have been explicitly encouraged to wear "shorter skirts" and "lower-cut shirts." My response to it is usually along the lines of "I'm not advertising what I'm not selling," which is essentially true but doesn't quite get at the point. Frankly, I don't wear revealing clothing because I don't like being revealed.

Women's clothing is calculated to reveal. It becomes a game to see how low your neckline or waistline can go before it's public indecency. Women's bodies are so relentlessly sexualized that it's numbing. I've gotten to where it's a downright turnoff for me to see a girl whose breasts seem to be making a bid for freedom from their Wonderbra.

My roommate first year asked me once "You have such a nice figure. Why don't you show it off more?" Because to me, my body is not an object for everyone else to look at. It's mine to use as I see fit, when I see fit, and that does not include displaying it for public approval. I'm happy with my body and my looks, and frankly I couldn't care less if some random schmoe walking down the street I live decides I'm fuckable or not. Talk to me, not my cleavage.

So where does this fit into the messages I get about sex from my upbringing? If sex is dirty, why should I use my clothes and my body to elicit sexual desire from men? If nudity is taboo, why flirt with the edge?

Labels: family, gender, love/sex

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.

Labels: gender, Teh Gay