My Inner Man: Part 2

Nora Vincent has me steeped in the world of a lesbian trying to pass as a man in a man’s world doing man things. I felt compelled to do my own experimentation. In the middle of a paragraph about dating women as a man, and two ice cream sandwiches later, I jumped out of the bed, got into my car, and sped off to Target. Enough with the talking about it, I was going to get me some guy gear and explore this repressed side of myself.

At Target I made my way to the men’s section and straight to the sale rack. There was no need to invest more in this phase than I would in my regular wardrobe. I put together, rather quickly, some vintage wash jeans and a matching t-shirt that had a picture of a squirrel holding up two acorns saying mines are bigger than yours. You know this shirt spoke to me. I reflected back on my days in high school and remembered how much my jeans sagged, so much so that I wore out my belts trying to keep them strapped to my lower waist, and wore out the bottoms of the jeans from having them drag on the floor constantly. That wasn’t the look I was going for. I wanted baggy, but classy, so I adjusted the waist and length to give me room to move, but stay controllably off the ground. Since I hate changing rooms and trying on clothes in public, I bought the outfit, less than $30 total, and took it home planning on giving my girlfriend a drag fashion show.

Back at home, during my prep time before the show I discovered that how big I was in my mind and how big I am in reality was definitely NOT the same. The sizes I’d chosen had me looking like a gay man, one of the train boys*, waaaayyyy tighter than a metro sexual. I didn’t know men’s clothes could cling to the female form and be so flattering. This was something I had to ponder further at another time (I could get nice jeans, cheaper than woman’s jeans, that didn’t have the pouch in the front and left my crouch with room to breath, hmmmmm). Tight was definitely NOT the look I was going for. So back to the store I go to try again. Stay tuned!


*train boys- in Atlanta’s subways I used to observe boys, young men, who wore tight men’s jeans, hanging halfway or completely off their butts and little t-shirts and tank tops. They were showing what they were selling, I’ll blog more about this later.