TUCK EVERLASTING


From an article in today’s New York Times about “cross-dressing charm schools” :

Mr. Gorski, a 55-year old gay man who said he learned his trade impersonating Judy Garland and Liza Minelli, uses tricks like giving a client very long nails so he is forced to grab a fork more delicately. He also teaches them how to take little steps and small bites, how to sit with legs together, how to ask for a drink in a soft pitch and then sip it through a straw, how to keep from “waddling around” a room or “thumping” up the stairs.

Dear Mr. Gorski,

First let me congratulate you on your keen entrepreneurial spirit. Who’d a thunk an older ex-drag queen could end up dispensing beauty advice to would-be trannies? It just goes to show you, never underestimate the Garland Legacy.

However I do have one teensy question. Where are you? I’m guessing either 18th century Japan or Edwardian England. Your ideas of womanly etiquette are quaint but dated at best. Are your cross-dressers allowed to smoke in public? Own land? Vote? While I’m certainly not as social as you, I confess I never see females who “take little steps and small bites” unless they are Yorkshire Terriers. Also, at least in any establishment in LA, asking for a drink in a soft pitch will get you nowhere. Usually the music precludes anything pitched softly and, especially in this town, man or woman better expert in hardballs and curves.

Therefore your guidance in helping your clientele get in touch with their “feminine side” seems oddly conservative. To be honest it sounds suspiciously testosterone driven, like women wearing high heels during sex in porn. Unless your students have aspirations to being Geishas or Barbies, they’re probably not going to get all estrogen on our asses soon. Waddling, now that’s another matter. I see Waddlers all the time and I’ve never been compelled to inquire their sex. Granted, they’re usually older and wearing slippers but I’m just saying.

If you should ever decide to expand your business here to LA, may I make a few topical suggestions :

1. Teach them to smoke like chimneys. While this is also a mannish Angeleno habit, it does occur especially among young women here. It may be for metabolic reasons, a way to deal with the enormous amounts of caffeine and Red Bulls or some image-oriented delusion but it’s definitely a must for the girly-man.

2. Cellphones. At one time women in Atlantic City were forbidden to enter hotels alone. The larger resorts would hire a man whose job was to accept calls from women outside needing to get to their rooms and escort them in. Hence the term “doorman”. Cellphones (like doormen) cleverly allow women to be alone yet not alone at the same time. Yes, you look unattended but someone on the end of the line is actually there to ensure companionship. Since being demure seems the name of your game, it’s also an easy way to avoid smug bachelors looking for company, something every woman has done at some point. More so, I’m guessing, than lifting a hand to cover her mouth when she giggles.

3. Periods. While this is a toughy for your, uh, physically challenged clients, nonetheless it’s without argument a Woman Thing. Perhaps they could find some other process to immerse themselves in for a few days each month. One that requires buying products and emotional upheaval. Bleeding and inserting something in your body also scores bonus points.

4. Purses. In New York a stylish shoulder bag is de regure for any Urbanite but since everyone in LA has a car it’s not so necessary. Of course that takes all the fun out of it and if it’s acceptable to showcase a smart bag which can hold all the things I’m now forced to stuff in my pockets, then I say work it for all it’s worth.

I hope I’m not being too presumptuous. Perhaps for reasons of secrecy you’ve only mentioned some of the wisdom you impart for acting feminine. After all, you once impersonated Judy and Liza so some of the subtler points might include Smeared Lipstick and Pills.

I dare not imagine but then again, don’t ask me. Ask a woman.

SRO

6:30:17 PM    sro home /