#and how we need to stop taking shit away from “normal sized” cis women

[angelicspaceprince]

I'm actually losing my mind

[theramblingonesie]

Facing Our Making Part 4: Makeup and Performance

Misty Copeland as “Firebird”

Welcome to the grand finale of the makeup blog series! It’s been a great experience writing about all of this because it’s given me an incredible opportunity to really dig into myself to discover my own biases, blind spots, preferences, and ways I can learn and grow. I dunno about you, but I rather enjoy that shit. I hope that maybe you learned something, too, or at least had a chance to tease out and reflect on how the subject has affected you in your own life.

Getting into social customs and how we each feel about them is an interesting sport. For me, I liken it to when you get your blood pressure measured at the doctor’s office.

You put the arm cuff on,

“Okay, here’s this social topic”

and they put the stethoscope on you to hear your pulse,

“Hello, world. Here’s what I think…”

and then they start pumping and tightening the cuff.

“This is wrong! Here are some arbitrary rules! Less of those people! Restrict! Cancel! Humiliate! Isolate! Deprive! No! Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!”

They go until they can’t tighten anymore, and pause.

“Yes, I’ve arrived. This is the TRUTH.”

And then release.

“Actually, fuck it, let people live their lives”

Whooooooosh!

Leaving you with the sound and feel of your own beating heart, the pulsing of the blood as it rushes back in.

“Hello, life.”

(Sorry, I think the sexy blood pressure pout is goddamn hilarious. )

We can do a review of previous blogs in this series, but ultimately what I hope you’ll walk away with is this:

Let’s stop arbitrarily restricting people, whether directly or through complicity, and let them live their best lives.

Yes, we need to examine social and structural cancers. But no, a boy with a purse and an 80 year old woman in sequins snake-print pants are most certainly not that.

I want to write about makeup and ageism. I want to write about makeup and classism. I want to write about makeup and racism. I want to talk about makeup lineage in families and cultures. I want to write about intimacy and faces, and a million other topics that makeup touches, holds and carries. But I am not a makeup artist or enthusiast, nor any kind of image specialist (fun fact: I’ve never been to Sephora), and I must move on to other things. At most, I am a shapeshifter who delights in the moods and adventures that dabbling in makeup and fashion can provide to the human experience.  Who knows, maybe I’ll tackle another piece randomly in the future. But regardless, I strongly encourage anyone who feels called to pick this up and run with it. Nothing I’m writing is original-- it’s just a collection of thoughts and opinions gained from experience and conversations had over the course of my life. I want these conversations to be had. They’re already being had, and we need to add voices to it. So please-- let’s hear yours <3

Here’s an oversimplified review of the rest of the blog series:

Beauty standards are impossibly harsh and cause a lot of unnecessary pain. Let womxn decide what they want to do with their own damn bodies and stay out of it. Unless they hire you for a consultation. Wearing makeup is awesome, and so is not wearing makeup. Your gender presentation and basically any presentation of your body and behavior do not determine who you are and aren’t attracted to sexually. And fuck gatekeeper behavior. If someone tells you that you aren’t the gender or sexual orientation you know yourself to be, then that’s a reflection of some internal shit they’re fighting with, boo-boo. Not you. But I know that doesn’t make it hurt less, and I love you. How toxic masculinity ruins the day in relationship to makeup or not makeup needs to die, and YES women and cis-women** also support and host this behavior (internalized misogyny).

How you choose to adorn yourself does not make your human experience any more or less “real”. Qualification for living a real life in a real body: having a pulse. Just because it is not your experience does not make someone else’s experience a myth. Womxn who wear makeup are not whores unless they are, in fact, professional whores. Professional whores keep the world turning, and bless em for it. The problem isn’t sex work. It’s violence against sex workers. Consider your complicity.  

If you want sexual attention because you enjoy sex, then that’s your business and FUCK YEAH GIT IT!!!

Christianity was largely instrumental in informing men that they are not allowed to wear makeup, lest they lose their “manhood”. I have so much to say about that, but I’ll leave it to a recent quote I heard from poet Regie Gibson: “We must learn to fear churches that fear drums.” That will resonate deeply with some and confuse others. Think about it.

The art of drag is centuries old. Makeup has been used by all genders and sexes for decades as a form of protest, revolution, equality, and visibility.

Whatever body you are in, whatever gender you are, you deserve to wear makeup if that is part of your desired expression. It is up to the rest of us around you to do the work to create a world that accepts and allows you to safely do so. Your level of perceived attractiveness does not determine the size and capability of your brain. What does need to be examined is how we sexually and emotionally abuse “attractive” girls and women, both in person and through media, in a way that forces them to believe that they cannot achieve a full life without using sex as currency, or that none of their accomplishments or thoughts matter because their only purpose is being a sexual accessory. As we’ve seen time and again, sexually “attractive” women are punished for straying beyond the purpose of being unintelligent sex objects. Or, there’s a lot of “woke” folks out there who are all “yay! Hot women are also smart, give them opportunities!” and will ONLY respect and listen to women they deem worthy of sleeping with. I will also challenge society by saying that it is sexual abuse to strip a person of their sexuality simply because they don’t fit what you’ve been conditioned to believe are your “standards”. No, one is not required to be sexually active with anybody. But denying another human’s right to love and affection due to superficial beliefs IS abuse, in my opinion. Forcing a person who does not fall into conventional beauty standards to intellectually perform beyond their abilities is abuse, and based in the illness of consumer culture.

What is your purpose?

WHAT is YOUR purpose?

What is your PURPOSE…

THING?

Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

A person’s decision to wear makeup, not wear makeup, or augment their body is their business, because those are decisions they make for their own personal survival. Do not blame them for wanting to survive. Consider the bombardment of messages we hear daily about “worth”. What our bodies look like determine too much to be listed here, but for many, it’s the difference between life and death, even if that’s not an immediately conscious motivation.

Marinate in that.

So let’s get down to the series conclusion. This is an exciting, though brief, one for me:

Performance and Makeup

When my friend Aepril (from blog #1) messaged me about her dilemma of being asked to show her “real” face, we both connected over the uniqueness of the application of makeup as performers. For a performer, makeup goes beyond wearing a nice face out in the world while we conduct our business. Makeup becomes a ritual act, and a space of channeling energy required to suspend disbelief and transport an audience to other times, realms and worlds.

Makeup for performers is also practical: don’t get drowned out by bright stage lights, and accentuate features so that the audience can follow your expressions while you’re telling a story.

One of my favorite parts of performing is, honestly, the pre-show ritual. I love the act of transformation. I go from my blank little pasty potato face and limp baby hair to creatures and characters from my dreams. I can be:

Super femme

Super butch

Superhero

Child

Old man/woman

Dragon

Cat

Spy

Femme fatale

Ballerina

Goddess

Bird

Elemental

Victorian socialite

Bum

Cartoon character

Someone’s dad

Heartthrob

Potted plant

And the list goes on…

Important note: I recognize that my age, whiteness, and stature grant me certain privileges of transformation that not all are afforded. I think this is important to acknowledge, as well as participate in conversations around greater equity in the entertainment industry. Except in cases such as blackface or cultural appropriation, it’s important to challenge type casting and beliefs around the limitations of who can play certain roles.

Makeup allows me to embody the energy I want to convey. If I can look like it, I can believe it. Sit backstage and watch performers after they’ve put on their makeup and costumes. Often, it’s as if their “normal” personality has left the building, and they begin taking on traits and mannerisms of the character they’re playing. It’s a wild experimentation in the realm of the human psyche- peering into our layers and depths of possibilities and dormant desires and aspects of ourselves. Some performers will reference a character they play and say, “yeah, that’s not who I am. But understanding that character gave me greater compassion for people like that”, while others will tell you that their character is a portrayal of their truest selves.

Because of the perceived separation from reality (though art imitates life), the stage is often the safest place for artists to fully show themselves. There is always the option to retreat afterwards and say “oh no, that wasn’t me. It was all pretend.” Or conversely, moments on stage can empower the artist to be supported in their moment of authenticity, because the audience understands that their role is to respectfully hold space and witness. I find that audiences are far better at allowing for differences when the context of being confronted by them is in an environment separate from their daily lives.

Plainly said-- everyone loves a loose cannon or bold personna on stage or in the movies. They feel far more threatened by it in the workplace or in their beds.

I’m neither advocating for, nor dismissing acceptance of all personality types. But I also sometimes find myself in a producer/manager stress space of saying, “yes, I get that this is wicked cute on stage or in the movies, BUT THIS IS REAL LIFE AND COULD YOU PLEASE ANSWER YOUR EMAILS AND NOT STORE THE KNIVES WITH THE HAIR BRUSHES, THANKS.”

The stage is a place where your desire to give everyone the finger and store the knives with the hair brushes is totally okay. And I think it’s great to have that outlet.

Pro tip: it’s smart to carry bandaids on a film set or backstage at a show.

Makeup gives us the courage to let those pieces out. Sam, looking like Sam, won’t do a lot of stuff. Sam looking like a person, animal or entity she admires (or loathes), will do almost anything. Yes, you can have a field day digging into that psychology, but the fact remains nonetheless.

A couple weeks back, beloved Boston burlesque Monster Queen and icon, Devilicia, recommended that I watch “Susanne Bartsch: On Top”, a documentary on Netflix. If you don’t know who this is (I didn’t), here’s an excerpt from her biography on her site:

Susanne Bartsch is New York City’s patron saint of transformation and inclusion. The parties she’s thrown for three decades—from Paris to Tokyo—have provided a venue for countless creative souls and “creatures” to express themselves, come together and forget the hum-drum of the everyday. As Michael Schulman wrote in his 2013 New York Times profile, Susanne’s “empire” continues to flourish “particularly among scene seekers too green to know her history. Wherever Ms. Bartsch goes, the demimonde seems to follow, as if summoned by the bat of her curlicued fake eyelashes.” Fashion mogul John Badum once referred to Susanne as “Mother Teresa in a glitter G-string.”

I can’t recommend this film highly enough. One of the most important parts was when Susanne tells the interviewers that she never had any artistic talent for painting or any other such creative mediums. She instead decided to use her body as her canvas for expression, exploring what makeup, color, texture, and so on could create, and that relation to the world around her. She refers back to the restriction of her upbringing, and how that influences her openness and dedication to personal expression. Susanne influenced countless careers and communities, especially for LGBTQA+ folx and those who consider themselves to be “outsiders”. When people who attend Susanne’s legendary parties were interviewed, many of them speak of these communities as life saving. It was a place where they could just be themselves, and finally be around others who either understood them, or allowed them to be exactly who they are. All of this through the power and creativity of makeup and fashion.

Makeup serves infinite purposes-- safety, transformation, personal exploration, etc. But one thing I love about this craft is its ability to amplify visibility as a sort of flag for finding your people. Often when I’m in a new city, I find myself dressing in a way that will signal to others who might share similar lifestyles that I’m out and available for connection. When I’m at my incognito cafe job and a womxn with black stiletto nails comes up to the register, I’ll give her a certain acknowledging smile and say “I love your nails”, which really means “I see you, friend.” The same way a lonely gay man will show up to one of Susanne’s events with mirror glitter on his eyelids and a tutu made of eyeballs thinking, “hello, do you see me? I’d love to be a part of this family”, so many of us will walk around the world looking for signs of matching lipstick, hairstyle, eyeliner, and tattoos in hopes that we will find other aliens who might accept and understand us.

Photo by Cheryl Gorski

Some people find community through the act of not wearing makeup. Yes, I use the word “act” intentionally, because in today’s society, I believe it is a conscious decision to not wear makeup, just as much as it’s a conscious decision to apply makeup. But from personal experience, the people I most often attract when I’m not wearing makeup are not usually “my people”. I give off a very different impression when I wear muted tones, a floppy messy pixie cut, and display my thin, pale, generically-European facial features. When I outwardly express myself through makeup and fashion, it’s like throwing a direct line to the crowds and conversations I want to be having. It’s not a flawless system, of course. Sometimes the same people who love and adore me while I’m dolled up have absolutely no use for me in muggle form, not always realizing that I’m the same person. Sometimes that makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me cry. Depends on the day.

I stand by the belief that your decision to wear or not wear makeup is revolutionary. It is a decision made that acts as agency in how you want your life to be played out. That’s powerful, whether for better or for worse. So many people say “ehhh wearing makeup is conforming” or vice versa. But I’d like to present the challenge that what we do to our own bodies is not the conformity, but rather the conformity lies in the pressure we put on others to think, feel, and present as we do, or in a way that’s convenient and pleasurable to us.

If you did the exercise from the first blog in this series and kept your list of all the reasons why you do and don’t wear makeup, go ahead and look at it now. Reflect on each of those responses, and remember that it’s your fucking life. Our bodies dictate almost all of the experiences we will have in the world. It is your right to try and have as much say in that as possible.

Thank you so much for reading, and best of luck on your journeys of exploration, expression, and finding a home with your people, whoever they may be.

** “women and cis-women” is a term my friend Alexis recently said to me, and I’m playing around with it.

[treehugginglibrarian]

“But, how do I Start?”  Honestly, I don’t know.

I can’t remember a time when exercise was difficult for me. Of course there have been times when new regiments left me sore or a particularly grueling workout was, itself, quite difficult. The general act of exercising, however, has always come easily to me. When people trying to get into shape ask me “how do I start?” I’m completely useless. I can offer to work out with them. I can offer to help them put together a plan of some sort. I can probably even come up with a type of exercise they’d enjoy based on their likes and their personality. I cannot give them any advice on how to “get started” or “get back into it,” because I’ve never had to do either of these things.

The first sport I can remember playing is soccer. I was five or six and my dad was the coach. I used to get carded and thrown out of games because I liked to push the boys on the other teams and steal the ball from them. Stealing the ball was okay, apparently the pushing was not. In short order, soccer was followed by t-ball, basketball, and softball. Throughout my elementary school years I was almost always involved in a sport of some sort and, lacking a video game console to indoctrinate me, I was often outside climbing trees.

I was completely horrible at sports. Just, absolutely disastrous. I had a pretty solid three-point shot for a while, despite being insanely short at the time, but other than that I was pretty awful at all of them. The last organized team sport I attempted was volleyball, while in middle school, and after the second straight season of never seeing the court during a game, my parents gave me permission to quit that shit. They did not, however, give me permission to sit idle.

I couldn’t have been much more than 11 or 12 the first time my mother looked at my anxious, fidgety, person and said “Bins, you’re making me crazy. You have too much energy. Go for a run or something.” I think she figured I would take the order metaphorically and just outside and play. I took her literally and I ran three miles. It didn’t take me long and I actually didn’t hate it. During the fall and summer months, I often made my dad go running with me so I could run at night without being eaten by bears (at 33 I’m still convinced my dad could save me from bears!).

Suffice to say, my sport of choice for my high school years had been selected and, while I tried long and triple jumping for a short period of time, it wasn’t long before I fell in with the distance runners and plodded through a mile and two mile race at every meet. I never did well, but I always finished. And unlike organized team sports, my slowness on the track was of little interest to my team mates. In the autumn I could be found sweating on the practice field, flag in hand, trying to make a rag tag bunch twirl in unison. On the weekends, I frequently laced up my running shoes and went for a jog just because I enjoyed it.

I think it was the summer after 7th grade when my mother started bribing me to go to Jazzercise with her. Yes, you read that correctly. Jazzercise. With my mommy. It was completely awesome. I’d get up every morning at a reasonable hour, eat a light breakfast, spend the morning working out with my mom, stop for chocolate or a donut on the way home, take a shower, and have the whole glorious summer day ahead of me. You’d be amazed how much 13 and 14 year olds can accomplish when they’re awake all day during the summer (I read so many fucking books, it was insane). I didn’t completely understand why my mom had wanted me to go to class with her so badly, but who was I to say “no” to chocolate covered oreos? Besides, I was weird, even as a teenager I liked my mom more than I liked most of my classmates. 

By the time I got to college, I didn’t know how to not be active. I played lacrosse (again, completely terribly) before ending up on the Ranger Challenge team through ROTC. I ran constantly and, under the instruction of a gaggle of men determined to make something of me, took to lifting weights for an hour a day every morning. During a time period in which most women are gaining weight and realizing what an enemy their metabolism is, I was literally unable to consume the number of calories needed to keep up with my activity levels. Since my college years I have stayed in shape primarily through running and lifting, though I went through a triathlon stint that lasted a good three or four years and ended with the completion of a half-IronMan. I’m sure I’ll get back to it eventually, but right now I’m still too busy trying to figure out whether I will ever be able to properly bench press my own body weight or do a hand-stand push-up.

The one thing that all of these activities has in common, though, is that none of them were hard for me to get into. I didn’t have to force myself to take up swimming or cycling. I didn’t have to prod myself back into the weight room. If I’m skipping the gym, it’s because I have plans, I’m not feeling well, or my workout is taking place at home. Skipping the gym just because I’m not in the mood isn’t something I do very frequently. I have been exercising, in some fashion, for so long that it’s no longer a hobby. It’s a way of life.

They say it takes 30 days to acclimate to a new habit or routine. If the resolutioners who populate gyms and rec centers at the start of every year are any indication, it takes more than 30 days for exercise, as a habitual routine, to incorporate itself into a person’s blood. They’ll show up on January 2nd and will make pretty steady progress until they skip a day in March or April. One day will become two will become three will become a week will become a month, until the only people left at the gym are the ones who were already there on December 31st of the previous year. The next year, on January 2nd, the cycle will start over again. Turning exercise into a way of life is unlike any other hobby or habit out there, and for many getting it to truly stick is nearly impossible.

Tobacco, alcohol, and sugar are all addictions. If you get past the first 30 days without them, you’re not necessarily in the clear, but you’re definitely better off. You’re well on your way to creating a better lifestyle for yourself. Likewise with adding foods that are good for you. These are alterations that require some thought and, on occasion, self-control, but they don’t require drastic changes to your overall existence. You’ve always had to eat, now you’re just eating differently. From a time-suck standpoint, convincing yourself to exercise on the regular is much closer to convincing yourself to start reading or writing every day. You may already have the time to do so, but unless you’re the type who spends entire chunks of your day staring at a wall blankly, much of that time is being spent on other things. Things that you will have to sacrifice if you want to engage in other time consuming activities. Things like reading, writing, or playing an instrument are missing a couple of the elements that seem to make exercise so elusive, even for those willing to spend the time.

For starters, exercise seems to have people convinced that it’s something you need to “know how” to do if you’re going to incorporate it into your life. Except, if you know how to walk (or roll, for that matter) you know how to exercise. Simply moving more than you typically would in a day constitutes exercise. That’s all ya gotta do. Move. The fact that people often think it requires some sort of “know how” may also be why it’s often associated with costing money. While some of us spend money on gym memberships, or find ourselves involved in physical pursuits that require specialized equipment or more expensive attire, these things are not necessary. You can walk an extra mile or two in blue jeans and a t-shirt. There are some things exercise is associated with, though, that make the reticence to participate understandable if it’s not already something you’re doing regularly.

For a lot (most) people who don’t exercise, it’s associated with specific goals. Typically, the goal to lose weight, or size, and to get in better shape. While these are, absolutely, worthy goals and worth taking up exercising for, they’re not the only reason to bother exercising. You can be reed thin, or just be happy with your size, and exercising would still be good for you simply because exercise is a healthy activity. It’s not only a healthy activity when you’re doing it for a purpose. It’s equally healthy when you’re doing it for no reason other than “because I should and I know I should.” Taking up exercise just for the sake of exercising will not, however, prevent it from being a possibly painful process when you start. Even for those of us who are in pretty good shape, a dramatic change in our exercise regime will leave us sore and tired at first. If you’re not braced for it, the soreness felt the first or second day after a new exercise plan is started may well be enough to turn someone off the idea.

We talk a LOT about privilege in today’s environment. White privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, cis privilege, so many privileges it’s actually a little exhausting and, to some extent, does little more than encourage a never-ending game of oppression Olympics. “I raise you one straight, black, Christian male with one buddhist, Asian, female, queer. Ha! Take that!” Like our privileges have become some sadistic form of real-life Cards Against Humanity that we’re consistently trying to win just by proving that our lives are “worse” than everyone else’s. If, like me, you were raised by a parent(s) who had an exercise bug up their butt, there’s a solid chance you’ve walked away with more privilege than you even really understand. It’s taken me YEARS to realize the gift my mother gave me in making exercise a lifestyle.

I am 33 years old and have never actually gone on a diet, despite having a generally normal metabolism, and I’m still pretty thin. I’m healthy, insanely so. My blood pressure is perfect as is all of my blood work. I very rarely get sick and, when I do, it’s almost always a result of my irritable bowel syndrome or is little more than a cold. I am thin enough to enjoy the gift that is “thin privilege,” wherein I’m automatically perceived as being smarter and more competent than my peers, solely because I’m thinner than many of them are. That said, I’m also muscular enough that most people don’t fuck with me at this point. I try to avoid walking to my car alone at night not because I’m scared of the people near where I work, but because I have a distinct feeling I would end up breaking a nose if someone approached me the wrong way and getting arrested for assault is low on my “to-do list.” I don’t need a man to open the peanut butter jar for me, to move my furniture, or to handle the heavy lifting in the yard. And because I have been exercising my entire life, the emotional work I have to put into maintaining this lifestyle is pretty slim. Exercise isn’t something I sacrifice other things for, because it’s a genuine requirement for me. The way eating or breathing or sleeping is.

None of this is an attempt to discourage the resolutioners or those who are looking to change their lives by incorporating more activity. Quite the opposite, actually. Do it! Get out there! Just know as you’re getting into it that some of the people you’ll encounter along the way have a serious head start. While some of them garnered this head start when they were in their 20s or 30s and, like you, were desperate for a change, some of us did not. Some of us literally don’t know a life that is any different than this. We’ve been borderline hyperactive our entire existence. We’re not trying to be discouraging when we shrug off your “how do I get started?” questions or seem puzzled by your stress, we just genuinely don’t get it. Don’t let us get you down. We may be the lucky ones, the crazies whose mothers or fathers thought that exercise just for the fuck of it was perfectly healthy for a 12 year old, but it’s NEVER too late to start. It can be as simple as a walk around the block.