Men These Days Are Women

"I tried to be like Grace Kelly
But all her looks were too sad
So I try a little Freddie
I've gone identity mad!"

Grace Kelly (2007) by Mika

A while ago, I spotted this really tall chick sporting one of those vaguely tomboyish hairstyles at the Melaka Mall. She was really thin, by the way and I'm talking stick insect here; an ultra spindly type who crosses her long, languid arms at all times like she's perpetually in an art gallery, strutting like a crane. She was wearing a pair of black, pencil thin trousers which made her legs seem like they would go on forever. On her face was a pair of plastic thick-framed glasses - or "emo glasses" as they are commonly referred to - that the "ah bengs" and "ah lians" of Malaysia seem to have taken a shine to recently. I noticed that she had exceedingly narrow hips (and an ass so small its probably pointy if she bends over) and I thought absent-mindedly to myself, "Now, here's someone who will never experience natural childbirth." With her was a friend, another girl who was at least twice her size and had a more feminine turn in her fashion sense. Lesbians, perhaps? Or BFF's with a lot of underlying co-reinforcing gender confusion and unresolved same-sex sexual tensions? I like making elaborate assumptions about strangers I see in public places. It's like a hobby.

At one point, I walked past the pair and noticed that the tall, thin chick has absolutely no tits to speak of on her extremely narrow frame. I risked a split second glance at her face, as I usually do in cases of missing boobage, to somehow confirm her gender from her facial features. It was a very girly face, if you must know. In fact, she looked like a twin sister of my girlfriend's college roommate. "Guess she'll never breastfeed too," commented my mind, chuckling like the asshole it usually is.

Then I heard her say something to her largish girlfriend.

And her voice was unmistakably male.

Great gods of androgyny! Two and a half years of medical school and I still could mistake a dude for a chick! There's a very important element missing from the curriculum, if you ask me - like the psychosexual needs of some guys to make themselves look as girlish as possible. I wanted to do a confirmation check using a tried and tested method I've picked up since I was a kid; look for the Adam's apple. But I dared not risk another look.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I ran into the chick-looking dude or dude-looking chick at the MBO cineplex later. She/He and her/his girlfriend was ahead of me in the line. The Adam's apple was prominently in display, and I wondered how I could have missed it before. It's very unsettling, however, to see a girl's face on a person you know is a guy. Every little movement he made screamed "Chick! Chick! For the love of Venus, chick!!!". I noticed that he had let his girlfriend buy the ticket while he stood beside her with her arms still crossed, complete with open hands and soft, dangly fingers. God, he was more girlish than most girls I know.

His girlfriend turned and asked him which seats he would prefer in the theatre and he replied "Up to you," in Mandarin, in the that creepy man voice so incongruous with his girly face. Note here that he, not content with looking like a woman, has to be as indecisive as one too.

Behind me in the line were a bunch of Chinese educated high school kids (I guessed from their sense of fashion). One of them had this J-pop star thing going on; skin girls would die for and straightened hair dyed like a Japanese anime character's. As everyone knows, Japan's biggest exported commodity is androgyny. I'm all for guys being metrosexual and all but I have to draw the line at rebonding. Spending hours at a saloon is an unambiguously girl thing - unless we're talking about American wild west saloons here that has swinging doors, beer and shootouts. That's as manly as anything can ever get.

This dude came from Japan.

I remember a time when a guy would be afraid of being considered a cissy by other dudes. It's a sign of the times, I guess. A lot of guys nowadays actively perpetuate a female self-image - but to what end, I cannot fathom. I have always considered that looks, for a guy, was always about making sure that he does not look ugly enough for girls to run away screaming. Metrosexualism was a relatively new trend of thought, one which gives metrosexual guy an edge over your regular males just by having the virtue of being better groomed, and thus, has a higher chance of err, getting a chick to sleep with him. See, part of a guy's motivation in nurturing a personal image is always about increasing their marketability; their chance of getting laid.

Why some guys nurture a self-image which repulses heterosexual women is beyond my ken.

A short walk in Mahkota Parade today convinced me that the demographic of girly boys is a growing one. I spotted many guys exhibiting shockingly feminine behaviour. There's this one guy, for example, who was clinging to his girlfriend's arm with both his hands and arms while they were walking (the girl was slightly taller than him) in the exactly same way Phoebe clings to me while we walk. I also notice that some apparel shops for men sell clothes that are cut in the women's fashion and came in colours that guys used to find disgusting, even offensive. The guys wearing pink shirts thing is a particularly disturbing phenomenon - considering that pink is considered by most scientists to be the cissiest colour in the entire visible spectrum.

Aside from all that, I also realise that there are more guys these days that are afraid of cockroaches, mice, and other harmless everyday creatures which would quite literally make them scream like a girl on encountering them. I find that really disgraceful, and felt that such guys give the rest of us a really bad name. I have heard complaints (frequent ones, at that) from girls saying that guys these days are bitchier, more vindictive and enjoy gossip far too much - negative behaviours which girls themselves admit to be feminine traits.

Why are men gravitating towards cissy-dom?

This reminds me of this episode of Wild Sex on Animal Planet which documents bizarre sexual strategies employed in the animal kingdom about a species of squid. The big, tough males of this species would spend a lot of time posturing, metaphorically flexing its tentacles to drive away other males from their females in their territories. There are males of the same species which looks exactly like the females - transvestites, technically - which are able to sneak past the muscle-headed males and screw their girlfriends behind their backs. I can't see a similar advantage in humankind seen in that particular species of squid-dom in being cissy, though.

Does being girly allow guys to be better in touch with female sensitivities, making them more desirable mates than your standard insensitive, testosterone-oozing dude? Are girly guys more docile and make better family men? Does being girly allow guys to have a better chance at seducing a lesbian? I honestly consider the male desire to sleep with lesbians to be a major evolutionary force.

Okay, I'll be more direct here; Ladies, do you want your boyfriend to be a wuss?

I don't think so.

Also by the laws of natural selection, the percentage of effeminate guys in the human population ought to have dwindled to nothingness - or at least, just plateau at a tiny constant above zero. The fact that more and more guys are becoming girls is just plain weird.

Having no ready explanations, I blame Japan.

Definitely Japanese.

Paragon of sensible maleness,
k0k s3n w4i