Shopping for basic toiletries – deodorants, shower gel, razors – I tend avoid anything labelled ‘For Men’. I’ve never felt manly in my life. At least, not manly in the Gillette sense.
I could never grow a beard. I wouldn’t know where to start.
[Have made myself laugh out aloud at that line. How shaming.]
To be found in possession of any canister decked out in those appointed colours of maleness (dark blue, silver, black) would make me feel at best disastrously miscast, at worse a fraud. I am not at home to Mr Lynx.
So I have to look for their more androgynously labelled counterparts. And if those aren’t immediately available, I buy the ladies’ products. Not really a big deal, as I’ve been purchasing hair bleach kits with photos of women on the front for nearly twenty years. The only true Women Only contents are the little polythene gloves. My hands are regrettably male in size, if not in hirsuteness. I resort to marigold rubber gloves instead.
Even the Body Shop has let me down. Their range of gentlemen’s products used to be called Mostly Men. I liked that. I feel not entirely a man. Just mostly. But now that range has been renamed to, you guessed it, For Men.
One of these days I shall get around to starting my own toiletries company, making a range of affordable emollients and underarm razors, for the slightly less manly gentleman. Suggested names for this brand: Dorian. Sebastian. Not Gatsby, though. Japan already has that. Take a look at this marvellous TV ad for Gatsby Hair Bleach. Will there ever be a British equivalent?
Though I have been regularly described as camp and flamboyant, I would say it’s only in comparison with the man in the street. Assuming the man in the street is Dennis Waterman circa 1978.
For a while, however, my own literal man in the street was indeed less manly. A young drag queen lived a few doors down from me and I knew him from the shinier, polysexual dress-up clubs like Kash Point.
One day, he phoned me up asking me to come over and change his light bulb. Not a euphemism – he knew how to negotiate the darkened streets of Highgate in high heels and a mini-skirt, but not how to change a standard light bulb. So he called me over, and I taught him the difference between a Bayonet Cap and an Edison Screw. (And then I told him about types of light bulb, yes, yes, all right.)
This was the manliest time I’ve felt in my life. I can also wire a three pin plug. But don’t tell anyone.
Last week I was contacted by a journalist. She was writing a piece on ‘the lives and loves of transmen’, ie female to male transsexuals, and wanted to interview me on the subject.
I presumed this was because I’ve written about the trans experience in Fosca songs, and have fallen in love with, befriended or dated a few persons who’ve happened to be trans. Though I would never go into personal details (I don’t kiss and tell, I’m too fond of kissing), I’m happy to help raise awareness about transgender jargon, etiquette, bust a few prejudices and generally do my bit for the differently-bodied cause.
The journalist wanted a few photos of me for the piece, which I duly sent. Then she wanted to hear some Fosca, and I sorted that out too.
And then her next email said, ‘Can I just clarify you’re trans?’
Ah.
I told her no, I wasn’t, not me personally. I’m merely a less manly biological male. But thank you for the compliment.
And that was the end of that. In that solipsistic way some journalists can get, she didn’t reply, not even to say sorry for the misunderstanding.
I suppose what I’m saying is, I wish she’d been more of a gentleman.
