Friday, September 19, 2008

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.

Photobucket
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.

Photobucket
Definitely Japanese.



Paragon of sensible maleness,
k0k s3n w4i

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

how funny to know that there are straight guys out there that looks like a chick. :))

Zzzyun said...

haha the part abt the squid is SO funny! the female-look-alike males are so sneaky...LOL!!

and i guess im ok with metrosexual... but guys who are too girly just aint my type..

nissy said...

hey! guy chick can be hot too. i saw to guy chick in kl lately, n they were sexy with boobs. haha

~JoAnN LiM~ said...

Awesome post! I totally enjoyed it! And to answer your question: noooooo to cissy/wussy boyfriends! Hahaha...
good job!

senorita.. said...

i second u, i blame Japan too!

guys in Welly are metrosexuals... (guys here have stick thin legs that are usually wrapped in very tight skinny jeans) and i find metrosexuals are more inclined to be sissy. dunno why. maybe they're too particular abt damaging their hair/skin to do manly jobs like catching a cockroach.. thus becoming scared of these creatures over time?

ps:ur elaborate assumptions are funny. LOL

ericG said...

what a detailed description of that guy cum gal... shows me how well u actually cuci mata... haha.

Hey, i own 2 pink t-shirts but i am still straight.

And ah...i find it disgusting guys that dress up like a gal... there are many out there - beware!

pinksterz said...

i like MANLY metrosexual guys. because at least, they understand the need to spend money on beauty stuff to make yourself look nice.

haih.

but yeah, guys in skinny jeans are just... euw. euw. euw. :S

*suddenly it reminds me of a certain blogger from spore* xD

Anonymous said...

aaaaaahhh!! xD so pretty both of thm. wher u find1? ehheh ^_^"

Evelyncyl said...

Tough men wear pink!

cissy guys aren't my type though.

Great post again! *claps*

février said...

pic 1. but that's an anime character, and he's hot.

pic 2. he could possibly be from korea wad

muscles aching.

février said...

wai u added pics ?

k0k s3n w4i said...

monstir: i have it on good authority that a goodly number of transvestite are as straight as arrows. gotta write it off as a fashion quirk, I suppose.

zzzyun: in the same way that girls who are too manly aren't for me :P

nissy: we gotta discount outright she-males. what worries me is that normal teenagers are going all cissidied.

~joanni~: down with girlyboys!!! we need the unified support of all girls on this xD

senorita..: ugh, jean-clad crane legs. I can't even stand that on girls, to be honest. a pet peeve of mine, that; guys afraid of bugs. god save us all.

ericg: med students are pro, yo. I own a pink shirt too, but i gave it to my gf already xD

pinksterz: i think it's already okay if the guy just know how to keep clean and smell free. we aren't flowers, y know.

fubi: type "androgynous japanese" on google and you'll find both of them on the front page :P

evelyncyl: tougher men don't wear pink =d.

beve: puhleese, everyone knows mr cloud strife is prettier than most real world girls. and korea, japan... not a big diff, IMO. I added pics to illustrate my point.. OBV

J.Y.Aguilera said...

Great observation (and thankfully, have someone who notices that) Yes, I'm VERY against Japanese style (the WORST fashion sense, although in the fashion world it's the most influential). The bulu-bulu (or spiky) hair style, cheap-looking button down short-sleeves shirt, boot cut pants, etc. They are what most young people (in Malaysia) wearing/channelling.
Metrosexual is just a label. Guys still can do whatever the ladies' (no pun) [crying, grooming, etc] as long as it's not overly.
Whether we like it or not, there is always "overly" feminine guys in the society. They are being "natural" to themselves, so we shall let them and leave them alone.
About the guys afraid of bugs or such, I think it's because, parents nowadays are too protective. For example, they would say to their kid(s), "Aiyer, look at the bug!", or "Yohhh, see the cockroach? It's coming to bite you." Those actually grow inside the children's psychology.
It's darn funny, when people (guys) are SO self-conscious on ... the colour, pink (or other bright colours), or the skinny jeans, or grooming themselves well, etc. Darn it, care more on what look good on yourself, than on what the society will think of you. I always thought guys looked funny in skinny jeans but until I bought two pairs of 511 skinny jeans (not legging tight), and I love them actually. SO WHAT? Guys wearing pink? So (what's the problem)? I do not think there's colour coordination for genders. (if "blue for boys, pink for girls" so true, aren't females liking/wearing blue too?) Again, I care more on hows one outfit look/fit on me than the "controversial" colour!
I pity those men, who are so uptight on following the "tough man's rules". I mean, when a man who is living his life based on the "real man-rules", basically, he is NOT one. Real man acts/behaves manly naturally and cares less about the stupid pink-for-girl or men-don't-do-that.

k0k s3n w4i said...

j.y.aguilera: ah, I guess it's my fault for channeling some jock-head's point of view on this. I am hardly one of those guys who follow a set of "tough guys rule". anyone that know me knows that the convention of my sensibilities, my hobbies and thoughts, are hardly manly at all (which landed me with a predominantly female circle of friends and yes, female readers of my blog). I ought to have toned up the inquisitive tone of this post (and go easy on the mock inquisitorial accents). I don't dislike crossdressers, effeminate guys, homosexuals or whichever group of people who might be inadvertently drawn in the same page (gay rights is of especial interest to me, even). Having that said, I merely wondered aloud, and held a culture in comparison with my opinions - in that tactless way I tend to write when I write really quickly. After all, I did buy a pink shirt a couple of years ago myself xD

mg said...

i like guys in pink. lol.. not neon pink but pastel pink. haha.. of course not ALL the time in pink, once in a while is fine.

tht last pic could be from taiwan!!! looks like some chinese singer (except jay chou cos he's still cool wit long hair =P).

Anonymous said...

i've got a neon pink shirt in the cupboard which doesn belong 2me! xD *sniggers*

Kae Vin said...

Someone like u, who are into gay rights and stuffs should be able to tolerate feminine guys right?

Don't people have the right to choose what they are becoming? Whether they are born with it or following the trend. Even if all Malaysian guys in newer generation pick up the sissy trend, nothing should be wrong right. I mean, we should not stereotype people.

and from the way u intepret beauty, which is the nonexistence of absolute beauty and beauty is all in the mind, consequently based on the same argument there should be no absolute masculinity right?

hehehe. The above-mentioned is not my opinions but some thoughts after I put myself into ur shoes. XD

k0k s3n w4i said...

specialhuman: i dun tolerate homosexualism. I accept it as a fact of life. they are humans and they deserve the same rights everyone gets. i believe it's a nature thing, and I am never someone who go against nature. effeminate fashion, on the other hand, is a lifestyle choice. I dislike it in the same way i dislike certain genres of music or literature. it's a matter of taste - tolerance or acceptance doesn't come into this at all. on a side note, when I hit on a girl in the future, I don't want to have to stealthily and tactfully confirm her gender. I believe (if you'll excuse my dated beliefs) that fashion ought to be practical and is able to make a person look good - and make statements too, providing the statements aren't pointless.

J.Y.Aguilera said...

You know what is more gay? (Seeing) Guy carrying Abercrombie & Fitch (shopping) paper bag! No, it's nothing wrong with a guy carrying a paper bag BUT, it's debate-less-ly wrong if the bag has a topless muscled-guy showing his armpit printed on (it)! [p.s: I saw one male student did that]
Shopping in Abercrombie & Fitch already "sangat" odd enough (if you don't know, in the stores usually have giant posters of topless-just-jeans muscled men everywhere). "Somemore" dare to carry their paper bags!

Anonymous said...

I like pretty face guys <3 <3