The clothes make the man

[sorcyress]

So, like I mentioned, I went to a ball this weekend, and, like I mentioned, I dressed up as a boy for it.

What I didn't specifically mention was that this was the first¹ dance event I have ever been to where I not only danced exclusively male³, but I dressed the part as well. So, for the first time in just about ever, I was given a chance to seriously debate the pros and cons of which gender I choose to be at a ball.

The pros of being a guy are numerous, and *awesome*. Like I said in my earlier post, there is a tremendous advantage for me to mark myself immediately as queer. It becomes self-selecting --the people who will seek me out will often (not always) be open minded sort of people, and the people who will avoid me entirely will often (not always) be the sort of people who think I'm going to hell forever for liking to kiss girls. I am okay with not having to deal with that.

Additionally, man, do I *ever* love drag. I'm not good at it --my face is girlish, and I do my damndest to smile when dancing, which pretty much sinks me⁴-- but I enjoy it. I already know full well that I am a gentleman and not a lady, dressing the part just gives me an excuse to be even more over the top with it all.

I do think my Tenney glasses help at least a little bit though --one of the criteria when I was picking out the frames were for glasses that would not be the breaking point of whether I passed or not. And, of course, the hair absolutely doesn't help in the slightest, but that's never changing, as I look fairly rubbish with short hair.

And the big pro, because I am vain and because I am anxious: I have sig*nif*icantly better period gentleman's clothes than period ladies clothes. I got a couple of both nice and surprising compliments throughout the course of the night. It's nice to know that, despite all the flaws with the outfit (ohmygod, vest, also breeches that fit would be nice, and eventually I'd enjoy a real shirt) people will go ahead and see the good parts (Why that is just about the BEST TAILCOAT EVER, also, not black which *is* period, and I am infinitely smug about, really.)

Also, simple krawatte⁵ knot with pinning the ends under my vest looked just fine. Although it does bring us to a major con of dressing like a male. See, you know how I have weird neck issues, and weird choking issues, and the like? Yeah, and to make it better, they're exacerbated by panic, or nervousness, or pretty much any serious negative emotion.

High collar, bound tight under a cravat. Add in a healthy dose of "dear gods, they are all going to laugh at me for being so terribly dressed, and then I am not going to know how to set, or do solos, or *anything* and everyone is going to hate me" and you have a Sorcyress who is only avoiding clawing desperately at her neck through sheer force of will.

Ladies get to wear nice swoopy low necked things. Which, you know, me and my complete and utter lack of cleavage *ever* are just so excited about trying to look good in, but at least no neck issues.

The more important disadvantage of being a guy?

Go put on a tight, binding sort of bra. Then an undershirt. Then a long-sleeved shirt. Then a vest. Then a nice big thick (bonus points for wool!) tailcoat. Oh, and don't forget tights *and* breeches!

I managed to not collapse dramatically from heatstroke. But I thought about it a couple times. It would've been quite fantastic, really. And I would've gotten yelled at by half the people there, ohman. Bastards bein' all caring about me. (I appreciate it guys, thank you!)

And this is the big disadvantage, and the thing that might make me try and find a Regency dress of my very own, because yes, it matters to me that much:

Ladies can dance with whomever they'd like.
Gentlemen cannot.

Period, fullstop, end of story. Or at least, theoretically end of story. I am young --the third youngest vintage dancer I know (and the other two are a dance instructor's daughter and her best friend)-- and I like dancing enough to not particularly want to see it (literally) die out. But if I'm going to be in charge of keeping this going (and ye gods, is that a frightening thought), I'm gonna do it my way, and that sure as hell is gonna involve anyone dancing with anyone.

The reasoning, now that I am not scary!ranting, is that "Gentlemen will not dance with each other if there are unpaired ladies". Being in a tailcoat meant that I was counted among the gentlemen for the evening, and yes, even with me and Rach as male, there was still a majority of ladies in attendance. And at this event specifically, there were a fair number of new and inexperienced dancers, almost all of them female.

This is a chivalry issue. The leads/men are expected to ask follows/women to dance, because while women can dance together, they often don't. Furthermore, it is *scandalous* for the women to ask each other to dance. Where is your sense of chivalry! Such pretty ladies should not have to do such a silly thing.

And sure, to a certain extent, it makes sense, especially in couple dancing. If you have two people who can lead or follow, and two people who can only follow, more dancing happens if each lead pairs with a follow. However, much of Regency is set dancing --grab a couple, line up, and mirror each other's movements (for the most part). The Regency waltz is symmetrical --each person places their right hand on the other's back, and their left hands either float elegantly next to them or get joined overhead. The differences between what men do and what ladies do are minute!

However, there still exists the precept that if two leads are dancing together, they are thereby preventing two follows from dancing. An inexperienced dancer may not wish to dance with another inexperienced dancer, or a lady may not wish to dance with another lady. But really, my general feeling is that, if you want to DANCE all you need is another warm body who knows the patterns. It doesn't matter a whit what genders they are or aren't --the only point at which that would be a problem is if you are more focused on flirting than dancing⁶.

Soyeah. After a reasonably fun line dance followed by a waltz with mnemex, the caller of the evening scurried over to scold us for not providing our gentlemanly services to some ladies. I managed to duck my head apologetically, and *not* hiss "fuck you" at someone who I really do respect a fair amount⁷, but the temptation was very much there. Especially as not going out of my way to break rules meant I danced neither with rm or marcmagus, both of whom I would've enjoyed doing such a thing with.

So that's the big thousand dollar question of whether or not to keep dressing like a boy. If I dress like a boy, I look awesome, I get to play genderfuck, and I generally have a fine and flirty time of things. But I can't dance with any boyfriend I would be lucky enough to bring, not unless he's in a dress (separate, personal, bitchy rant) and passing, and that hurts, honestly. Dancing is how I've found more people worth kissing than anything else (except maybe cons) and I continue to maintain that a good enough dance is better than sex.

Gods, this turned out agonizingly long. Were I a clever writer, I would've split it into two posts, but when have I ever done something useful like that? Also, verdict? I'm vain. I have good looking boy clothes. I'm just going to have to conveniently forget that gentlemen aren't permitted to dance with each other at least once at every dance event ever. Because, yeah, I think it's a stupid rule, and I'm willing to do what I can to fight that power.

((And yes, yes, I'll make up for it by dancing as often as possible with newbies. I'm not a *complete* bitch, jeeze.))

~Sor
MOOP!

1: I...am not sure, actually. I think I went to a night of SCD as Erik² once, but I also think that dissolved. Plus, it's really hard to differentiate between "girl in a kilt" and "boy in a girl body in a kilt"

2: Erik is the name of my drag persona, though I think he's losing ground to just being Sorcy!male vs Sorcy!fem.

3: Okay, I've never danced a whole event as a boy. But I've been to workshops and danced only the lead's part, on a couple different occasions. And I try to queer it up whenever I can, because it's boring to just dance with the boys.

4: This is one of the most unfortunate passing tips I've ever encountered, but it also seems to be true. I have stared myself down in the mirror, and managed to see Erik when I am seriouspants, but I have yet to ever manage to actually see him when I smile. I don't know if its boys smile different, or less, or what, but I look more boyish when I don't smile.

5: Possibly untrue --die krawatte is "the necktie", I don't know if it also applies to cravats.

6: Not that there's anything wrong with that, and when I'm in full flirtmode at dances, I ask the people I most want to flirt with to dance, not the people I consider the best dancers. This is why (for instance), while I find genarti a particularly good SCDer, and am always happy to have her in my set, I don't tend to seek her out to dance with --I'm not romantically interested in her, and part of SCD for me is flirting. Flirting at dances is not at all a bad thing. But seriously, it is called a dance and not a flirt for a reason --the dancing takes precedence.

7: Rixogirl, if you're reading this, I'm entirely serious. I do respect you, especially when it comes to knowledge of both the dancing itself and the historical context surrounding the dance. I also certainly respect the difficulty that comes with which historical aspects should and shouldn't be ignored --speakers for the musicians are a good thing, as an obvious example-- and where one draws the line between "too" modern.

But I really *really* do not like having to limit who I am allowed to dance with, especially when I have friends and people I get along with well across a reasonable spectrum of genders.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Offered without my opinion on what I'm about to describe:

I think the issue is not just chivalry and the leads thing (which is not a practical issue in the Regency ballroom) but also recreating the feeling of a Regency-era ball, wherein ladies would be seen dancing together, because hi, Napoleanic Wars, a shortage of appropriate men at an event is perfectly plausible and the dance manuals of the time mention this and state that it is acceptable for ladies to dance together. However, you would never see two men of the time dancing together in the ballroom, even if somehow a situation arose in which there was a surplus of men. The exception to this, of course, is completely not applicable to the Regency and relates to social entertainments in certain parts of the American West later in the century. Then you did have men dancing together, sometimes with one party in drag, in communities that were mostly male (railroad tracklaying camps, mining communities, etc.)

Other random points:

If you ever do full, proper, fitted Regency men's garb, the neck thing is really severe. I say this as someone who is comfortable with the physical issues of it (um, I sort of have a kink about it that's the exact opposite of your issues), and I find it unpleasantly restrictive, as I often have to turn my whole body in order to face someone because I can't turn my neck. It's absurd.

Also, I can teach you how to smile like a boy.

Gender Free Dancing

[dhs.livejournal.com]

if you want to DANCE all you need is another warm body who knows the patterns. It doesn't matter a whit what genders they are or aren't

You seriously need to learn Modern Western Square Dancing as taught at MIT's Tech Squares. The attitude of "dance wherever there is a space for a dancer" is very prevalent. Which also makes you ready to dance at any number of gay square dancing clubs. (There are two parallel MWSD worlds. In one, people show up as couples, and often dance only with each other. In the other, people show up as singletons, mix & match on a per-'tip' (pair of square dances - one of which is a singing call) basis, and many will dance either the 'boy' or 'girl' part.)

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

You may want to consider bringing two outfits to the dance so that you can do the first half of the evening as Erik and then revert to girlness thereafter, assuming you have a way to store costumes.

[londo.livejournal.com]

rm sniped (and thus, changed) the smile-related comments I came here to make.

The other part that stood out to me:

It becomes self-selecting --the people who will seek me out will often (not always) be open minded sort of people, and the people who will avoid me entirely will often (not always) be the sort of people who think I'm going to hell forever...

This is an awesome trick and can be used in many contexts, not just cross-dressing to signal queerness. I've spent many years getting a similar effect out of wearing really stupid-looking hats. It's a magnetic effect, making some people more likely to interact with you and others less. Done rightly, it gets you the people you want and pushes away the ones you don't. (I hope to some day figure out what elements attract/repel what sorts of people, but in the meantime, trial and error is working reasonably well.)

[thorog.livejournal.com]

I sense a conflict of values here. i.e. historical accuracy versus whim.

[herbertinc.livejournal.com]

...do I *ever* love drag. I'm not good at it --my face is girlish,....

I have a very masculine facial structure, and was, until only a couple of years ago, frequently mistaken for a boy, especially when my dress was more utilitarian. I believe this has caused me to move towards a more feminine mode of dress, since I have a rather hetronormative identity.

My go-by name (whether Herbert or Herbert-yes-you-heard-that-correctly) doesn't help to that extent, either, but both tends to be interpreted as a queer signal, despite my completely vanilla gender/sexuality identification. Which of course leads frequently to hilarity. I think it does help me meet nifty people in a way that if I went by my given name wouldn't happen. Blessings from the unintended, indeed.

I second the comment about the hats. Though Awesome hats will work just as well as Ridiculous hats, I find. I do both.

Sometimes I feel guilty for being so normal. ....female/female, hetero, with no strong kinks (just a generalist's interest in variety), defaultly monoamorous. I even tend to fit into stereotypical gender roles, what with the whole cooking and organizational things, liking to do things for others over myself, fiber arts, appreciating chivalry, having an arm to hold when walking with a gentleman (yourself included), liking to dance with boys and being shy to ask people (especially those I don't know well) to dance, not liking to walk home alone late at night, etc.
It just feels so out of place among so many of my friends. I feel like I'm a weaker person for it.

Love,
Herbert.

[lonebear.livejournal.com]

What dhs said. At the 'lower' levels¹ MWSD is (to me) brainless fun. At the 'upper' levels and with a good caller² it becomes a puzzle with 7 friends working together to solve it.


1. Basic, Manstream, Plus, and for me, Advanced. When I stopped regularly dancing I was dancing Challenge 3B. The last time I danced was at a Challenge 1 dance after a multi year hiatus and I suvived very well.

2. 'My' callers are John Marshall and Ett McAtee. People at Tech Squares will probably recoginze those names.

[thorog.livejournal.com]

Alsoalso, die Krawatte is "tie" in Germish, but since the necktie originated as the cravat in Croatia, I think you're safe.

Google translate agrees.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a mostly straight, cis-gendered man, it still pisses me off when people don't let me dance with other guys. I've gotten better at politely but assertively refusing when I get offers to be split up, but I honestly don't know how I'd deal with someone insisting on it -- I'm not really a fan of having large confrontations at dances, but I'm also not a fan of stupid people getting their way.

I definitely flirt with other men, too -- attraction is not at all required for flirting in my book.

And while there's a part of me that thinks the theory that beginners will have an easier time learning if they stick to one role makes sense, I've spent enough time dancing at Bryn Mawr, where everyone learns both roles from the get-go, and which produces a lot of good dancers, to think that the available evidence doesn't really bear out that theory. Even if it does work that way for some people, there's no particular reason why some women can't just learn the gentlemen's role instead of the ladies' when they start out.

This is not to say that I don't mostly dance with women, because I do -- I very frequently wind up dancing exclusively with women on any given night (and it also depends on the gender balance to some degree). I'm not even particularly a fan of completely gender-free dancing, because I think labeling the sides that way makes it easy to remember which is where. But I really don't like being told that I have to dance only with women, and the fact that Regency apparently expects such is making me less inclined to try it, which is a little sad. (And I definitely cannot pass in a dress (the woman who called out, "Excuse me, ma'am," two houses down a dark street earlier tonight does not count), at least not a Regency one -- maybe a late Victorian one, with those giant leg of mutton sleeves and lots of corsetry (and a wig), but even so my face and voice would give it away.)

I suppose I could wear my kilt and claim to be a member of the 51st Division, but I don't really think that would fly.

Oh, and I agree on the heatstroke. Fortunately, it is socially acceptable at Scottish balls for the men to remove their jackets after the first dance, though there's still a lot of wool left, even if it is well-ventilated wool.

I am also curious now about how to smile like a girl.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I have had exactly the opposite feeling about same gender pairings in dance. I see women dancing together all the time, but it's very unlikely to see men dancing together. So I never lead if there are extra men, and I get somewhat annoyed when, say, the grand march has two or three sets of women together and several men sitting in the kitchen.

[marcmagus]

Right, I've been thinking about this whole thing a lot. As I've said, I agree with you.

It was really annoying feeling like I wasn't allowed to dance with you. Difficult enough navigating the intersection between the physical constraints on my waltzing, societal obligations to dance certain dances, and a slightly awkward poly situation regarding whether I would dance any couple dances with you that night [and I'm pretty damn sure I didn't do such a good job of that...so this is a note that we should talk about it, especially if I'm right] without adding in a social obligation not to dance with you because you were in men's clothes.

I was thinking that perhaps you're a test case: the first person in our community to attend an event in male clothing while having a specific desire to dance with another person in male clothing. Then I thought of the number of openly gay cis-male couples who have attended other related events, and realized that's just crap.

So, the situation for them, as I've observed it, seems to be that they dance primarily with women but nobody raises a stink when they dance the "special" dances with their partner or dance a couple of dances here and there with men.

I can't speak to how they feel about it. I'm not even sure if it's a "reasonable compromise". But it's an improvement. It's also from other historical [different period] events called by Susan de Guardiola.

I've briefly considered the argument that men dancing with men might drive people away from the community, a community too small to be able to afford to drive anybody away. If anybody wishes to advance that argument, I request they identify the specific people [offline], as our community is small enough we can readily name names rather than speaking in generalities. I'd then ask them to compare that number to the number made uncomfortable by the current situation [already outspokenly, you, me, rm] and consider the number of people each group is likely to bring to the community in the future. IOW, I wouldn't suggest making it a numbers game.

There were a number of people I wanted to dance with and didn't get to simply because the number of people I wanted to dance with exceeded the number of dances available. I think I'll pretend that's what happened this time and just make a point to dance with you next time; that work for you?

[Note: I considered whether to refer to SdG by name, which I'm generally against on the internet, before concluding that it's appropriate when discussing a person in their professional capacity to refer to their professional name. Linking it back to their private life would be inappropriate.]