Forced masculinization?

[seela]

I've never really thought of it as forced masculinization, but actually something we now play with sometimes in my relationship sort of falls into that category.

I bought my first pair of sneakers since I was 10-ish this spring. I don't even know why I bought them, because I never really liked them that much to begin with. I'm more of a girly girl and I mostly wear dresses and skirts. I like to wear heels, especially when I'm out with J, because he has a foot on me in hight and I definitely feel more confident wearing heels than I do in flats.

It's been incredibly weird to wear the sneakers, because they make me feel like everybody's staring at me. I walk funny with them, I feel silly and completely stiff wearing them, definitely less feminine, and my discomfort hasn't gone unnoticed by J. I feel particularly silly wearing a dress or a skirt with sneakers, and sometimes when we've been heading out together, he has asked me to put on the sneakers instead of the shoes I originally opted for, for his amusement.

One of the hottest humiliation fantasies I juggle in my mind is getting my hair cut, either just some short "boy cut" or even a buzz cut. I wouldn't like the result, but it pushes so many submission and humiliation buttons for me. For me long hair and dresses are elements to my gender orientation, and having them stripped off would definitely humiliate me.

It doesn't have anything to do with becoming the "stronger gender" (I think in forced feminization it's often said that it's humiliating because the target gender is the weaker one), but everything to do with having my own gender identity made worthless, having the markings of it washed away, flattened down, clipped off and covered.

 

[annred]

What an interesting Thought

 

[KoPilot]

It doesn't have anything to do with becoming the "stronger gender" (I think in forced feminization it's often said that it's humiliating because the target gender is the weaker one), but everything to do with having my own gender identity made worthless, having the markings of it washed away, flattened down, clipped off and covered.

It's something more akin to this for me, as I talked about in that other humil thread.

I don't have an inherent gender, so every day is a game of dress-up for me unless it's jeans and a tshirt, or something else widely accepted to be unisex. For me, the "humiliation" of the masculinization would be heady and empowering because it would be coaxing out how I really feel on the inside, to the chagrin of the world and the bemusement of my D. I want those markings and markers washed away because I put them on in order to survive. It's like the gender version of a humiliation scene involving a woman who is a boss on the street who wants to take off the leaderly persona and be the s-type she actually is.

 

[IrisAlthea]

I get the argument that it's difficult to force a masculine image on a woman, and have her experience the same distress/humiliation as forced feminization might cause.

However...

IMO, it is possible. I recently changed jobs, which meant a [necessary] change of wardrobe. My previous wardrobe was very feminine - pencil skirts, cardigans and stilettos. The new job requires a company logo polo shirt and slacks. I haven't worn slacks in 10 years. I haven't worn a polo (much less one with a logo) in, ummm... ever.

It's been an interesting change. Dressing down (and in a way I personally identify as more masculine) has been very dis-empowering, for me. I've struggled with feeling like a woman trapped in boy's clothes; there is nothing that distinguishes me from the men in my workplace. It feels kind of stupid to let it bother me, but it does. It's getting easier to ignore the discomfort, and I understand the reasoning behind the dress code, but blech.

None of the above is an issue of D/s, specifically, and maybe *most* women wouldn't feel "weaker" dressed as a man, but it is possible.

While I was at the university I worked part-time at two places.
One was a nursing home that had kept the old nurses dresses from the sixties, so terrifyingly short and a bit see-through but definitely feminine and considered attractive by many.
The other was at a factory assembling machine parts and operating fork-lifts. There we had to use overalls (later changed to cargo pants and polo shirt) and safety boots.

Both uniforms were reasonable but both were also blech as you said.
The fact that it's forced on you, that you can't adjust to weather and such to keep comfortable and that it feels like loosing part of your individuality, makes you feel thrown off balance and that is never a position of power.

 

[Netzach]

I get the argument that it's difficult to force a masculine image on a woman, and have her experience the same distress/humiliation as forced feminization might cause.

However...

IMO, it is possible. I recently changed jobs, which meant a [necessary] change of wardrobe. My previous wardrobe was very feminine - pencil skirts, cardigans and stilettos. The new job requires a company logo polo shirt and slacks. I haven't worn slacks in 10 years. I haven't worn a polo (much less one with a logo) in, ummm... ever.

It's been an interesting change. Dressing down (and in a way I personally identify as more masculine) has been very dis-empowering, for me. I've struggled with feeling like a woman trapped in boy's clothes; there is nothing that distinguishes me from the men in my workplace. It feels kind of stupid to let it bother me, but it does. It's getting easier to ignore the discomfort, and I understand the reasoning behind the dress code, but blech.

None of the above is an issue of D/s, specifically, and maybe *most* women wouldn't feel "weaker" dressed as a man, but it is possible.

I had similar feelings of disempowerment with a similar uniform.

Funny thing is that I was often on my OWN time at this point in my life, dressing totally boy and in a relationship with an XY who related to me as a twink bottom when I was in this mode.

THAT was hot, the vest and khakis by day was horrid.

I've played with all permutations of gender and presentation in my time in leather, and I've realized that anything can function as anything. I could dress a femme up in total alpha male butch signifying stuff and treat her as my complete bitch just as I could with that actual man she's playing at. This only boggles the minds of people for whom the male=top meme is completely monolithic.

I know that there's a lot of depth and seriousness to gender identity, but I've always felt like I was just picking the one that involved the least bother for me, never very passionate about any of them, so for me, it's all experiment.

 

[Netzach]

I've got one: Dress her up very convincingly male (but, like nerd/loser - Howard Walowitz type) and send her to a singles bar to get chicks' numbers. Rejection's pretty humiliating.

(Then again, i wouldn't be surprised if she came back with 10...)


I wonder if there's some way you could finagle a convincing job interview...

This. Or do it to a really girly girl. Or do it to a girl whose body is like mine and will no longer look like anything but a sweaty *fat* 20 year old with a hormonal imbalance in a suit terrified of picking up girls. Not so Marlene.

 

[knot_sweet]

I have the exact opposite problem.
I might be female, but the worst thing for me would be forced feminisation.
My ballroom teacher has hell trying to get me to act graceful or feminine or sexy.
I feel like a complete idiot.

I think, in answer to the OP's original question, it would depend on how much a woman identifies her sexuality with her appearance.

Try to imagine Dolly Parton in a forced masculine situation.
This is a woman who gets out of bed before her partner so he never sees her without make up.
Can you picture her discomfort, unease, disorientation...?
Feeling less than she is...?
Ms Parton would indeed feel humiliated and disempowered if forced into a male role.

So yes, it can work, but you'd need the right woman to play out that idea with.

 

[Stella_Omega]

@Knot-sweet, I spent a couple years in bellydance classes. I was thinking, at the time, that I could switch between feminine and masculine, but that period really demonstrated how much I do not do 'feminine.' It wasn't the dance, but my teacher. She was this rather classical, technical dancer, very precise and very feminine. I looked like a construction worker in comparison!

I finally suggested that she teach me a male style-- she couldn't quite figure out what I meant. To binary. Ah, well.

 

[Dyslexicea]

Hey!

*raised from the dead* tnx Dyslexicea

And for the archeological efforts of future generations I'll just drop the same story here that I did in the Humiliation/Embarrassment thread, because it has a home now: Machoification. Lesbian forced masculinization.

I have many problem with the story Machoification, which I won't go into but I don't think for most of us lesbian being forced to dress butch would be humiliating, embarrassing for some but not humiliating. There was a time I would have been embarrassed but just because I'd have been acting, I wasn't ready to express my masculine side. Today if Jessie cut my hair short, I wish she'd let me anyway, bound my breast, dressed me butch, even made me pack, which I've done anyway you don't have to be butch to pack, take me to a lesbian club, I'd love it. It would just be an expression of part of who I already am.

If we use Stella's example of going to a gay club dressed as a man, and I mean man not butch, looking like a man, change my voice to sound more like a man then made to flirt, trying to pick up a dude, no sex of course, that would be humiliating.

 

[Allyourbase]

I have many problem with the story Machoification, which I won't go into but I don't think for most of us lesbian being forced to dress butch would be humiliating, embarrassing for some but not humiliating. There was a time I would have been embarrassed but just because I'd have been acting, I wasn't ready to express my masculine side. Today if Jessie cut my hair short, I wish she'd let me anyway, bound my breast, dressed me butch, even made me pack, which I've done anyway you don't have to be butch to pack, take me to a lesbian club, I'd love it. It would just be an expression of part of who I already am.

If we use Stella's example of going to a gay club dressed as a man, and I mean man not butch, looking like a man, change my voice to sound more like a man then made to flirt, trying to pick up a dude, no sex of course, that would be humiliating.

True, forcing someone to butch up isn't necessarily the same as forcing someone to pretend being a man. I can't really attest to the effectiveness of either, since a) I am not a lesbian, b) my butchness crosses over into genderqueer (some people call me 'he').

I have, however, experienced some extreme discomfort in masculine dress.

Storytime!

Once I participated in a drag king workshop. Even before going there I had issues. I had signed up for it in a whim, but while packing my bag, anxiety hit me: there was just nothing in my wardrobe that could pass for a man's outfit that I didn't already wear! This was going to be awkward...

And it was. Though there was quite a diversity of women present, I was the only one there who actually brought (or even owned) a binder. It made me realize how far down the spectrum I actually was. As an isolated queer, I had no idea.

While dressed up as a cartoon character of a man, we practiced body language, voice, etc. It was extremely hard for me, and I wondered why. I was half dude inside already!? Right?

Afterwards, the rest of the group went to get something to eat, in drag. Not me. All I wanted to do was crawl under a rock vomiting, and/or get that fake moustache off as soon as possible.

I still don't get why, entirely. It could be that I am too shy for theatrical performances in general. Or I might've found it difficult because I was being judged on performing the masculinity I was already trying to master in real life, and being told where I failed. Something that probably wouldn't have bothered any of the participants but me.

So, forced masculinization? I guess in this set up, it would be on the outer edge of play for me. (I am such a wimp. )

 

[thatshowshelikesit]

I think that it is definitely possible, but it wouldn't be seen quite the same, especially since we live in a society that, overwhelming views feminine as weak and lesser, while being masculine is associated with power and being more, and is seen as essentially the default of people. Being feminized is supposed to be humiliating and while I think being forced to be masculine could be humiliating for some people too, I don't think it would be, as a whole, the same degree of humiliation as view by society.

 

[BrightlyGo]

Being feminized is supposed to be humiliating and while I think being forced to be masculine could be humiliating for some people too, I don't think it would be, as a whole, the same degree of humiliation as view by society.

That sounds reasonable.

I think that it is definitely possible, but it wouldn't be seen quite the same, especially since we live in a society that, overwhelming views feminine as weak and lesser, while being masculine is associated with power and being more, and is seen as essentially the default of people.

This "more powerful" formerly-exclusively-masculine expression is, as you point out, now the default, accessible to all. So it's not strictly 'masculine,' anymore. Indeed, it never was innately 'masculine' rather, the powerful or 'more' expression was /denied to women/. Since it's no longer strictly denied them, there's less societal shame in taking it up.

OTOH, traditionally-feminine forms of expression are still mostly denied to men, so there's more societal shame in them taking it up.

There's been little effort to make such roles acceptable for men, either. When you do hear someone going on about how men aren't often nurses or are viewed as un-suitable primary care givers, it's more likely to be some obstructionist trying to take the wind out of feminists' sails, than someone who really does care about seeing such roles opened up to men.


So, 'forced masculinization' wouldn't just be putting on pants. It would have to involve something that society still pervasively denies to women, and that people still broadly police by shaming women who pursue it.

Are there a lot of things like that left?

...hm...

Oh... here's one: take your shirt off. In most towns a man can go bare-chested and at worst be denied service at a restaurant, while a woman doing the same might be arrested.

 

[Allyourbase]

So, 'forced masculinization' wouldn't just be putting on pants. It would have to involve something that society still pervasively denies to women, and that people still broadly police by shaming women who pursue it.

Are there a lot of things like that left?

...hm...

Oh... here's one: take your shirt off. In most towns a man can go bare-chested and at worst be denied service at a restaurant, while a woman doing the same might be arrested.

Good points.

Body hair?

 

[graceanne]

Huh. I think that whoever said it had it right, it would only work on some women, and then only if you're into a mind games kind of relationship. (Mind games tick me off.) I'm also a girly girl. I wear skirts and dress shoes or sandals most of the time. I always have pretty nail polish on, and rings, and I often have earrings in. I don't go as far as wearing makeup every day, and I hate high heals, but my favorite clothes are usually long dresses or skirts and a blouse. The only time I wear tennis shoes is if I'm going to work out, and my work out clothes are also feminine (capris and a scoop necked tank top). I would hate to dress in boy clothes.

 

[Dyslexicea]

Oh... here's one: take your shirt off. In most towns a man can go bare-chested and at worst be denied service at a restaurant, while a woman doing the same might be arrested.

That's not universal, in New York City we can go topless anywhere a man can. When we move back to our home in Greenwich, Connecticut we well again take advantage of our equal right to go topless in NYC.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Oh... here's one: take your shirt off. In most towns a man can go bare-chested and at worst be denied service at a restaurant, while a woman doing the same might be arrested.

That's not going to be masculinizing. I don't know where you live, but in this country a woman is a pair of boobs-- and the stuff that provides life support for them.

 

[Dyslexicea]

There's been little effort to make such roles acceptable for men, either. When you do hear someone going on about how men aren't often nurses or are viewed as un-suitable primary care givers, it's more likely to be some obstructionist trying to take the wind out of feminists' sails, than someone who really does care about seeing such roles opened up to men.

As far as men being nurses, you seem to be behind the times, men are entering the nursing profession in far greater numbers every year.

As for men being primary care givers. The number of men staying home taking care of children and household is also increasing every year. Divorce where both couples in a hetero marriage work is higher if the wife makes more than her husband but where the husband stays home the divorce rate is lower than households where the wife stays home.

Those roles are opening to men and some men are taking advantage of that. We have a long way to go but feminism is not dead and we do not live in the post feminist era as some seem to think. Feminism has changed but it is a long way from dead.

 

[KoPilot]

That's not going to be masculinizing. I don't know where you live, but in this country a woman is a pair of boobs-- and the stuff that provides life support for them.

Yeah, there's a reason that the only time you really see women exercising their right to be topless in public (where its legal) is during a protest.

 

[claygrrlplay]

I find this discussion especially interesting because I'm somewhere in the middle of feminine and masculine. I'm tall, curvy and I love to dress girly, but don't often wear very many of the high heels in my closet, because I don't like to be taller than my significant other. I am bisexual and tend to be attracted to androgynous people, whatever their gender. They usually have qualities of the opposite, weather physical or personality wise. I have recently been in a state of trying to balance the masculine and feminine within myself and I question weather or not there is some shame in my masculinity. Especially given the feminine qualities of my significant other. When I'm with a man, should I want to be feel more feminine? This role play idea makes me think that for me personally, perhaps I do want to... weather or not I'm always willing to admit it. So even for a not-so-girly-girl (like myself)... this could work.

 

[Stella_Omega]

When men claim that this society is post-feminist I want to give them the Clockwork Orange treatment;
http://blog.booklistonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/A-Clockwork-Orange-1971.jpg

Really. In this world of Tea Party, anti-choice, women-hating public policy-- what the fuck are you thinking?

 

[claygrrlplay]

Nice reference, Stella!

 

[cripple92996]

d

Shall we explore

 

[Dyslexicea]

Logically I think of men as equal to me not better than I am. I resent the way I am treated, I resent I have to be better than a man to be thought of as his equal. And I resent all the things Stella pointed out and I'm sure she could have gone on and on with her list, as we all could.

Doing away with logic, I really don't see men as my equal and they are only superior physically in size and strength. Height wise I'm over 5'10" so most men aren't taller than I am and in heels I can be much taller than most. Men are intimidated by those of us who are tall and I don't hate to admit it, I love intimidating men.

Over all I really do think of men, as a whole, as inferior, superior only in privilege, so dressing as a man any time should be humiliating. Being lesbian complicates that because of lesbian butch, so dressing masculine is not humiliating. Does this make any sense?

I would think that for a hetero woman who feels as I do, dressing as a man should be humiliating but I have a problem if she is submissive to a man how can she feel she's superior? My opinion is equal or less than yes, superior no.

 

[Netzach]

I would think that for a hetero woman who feels as I do, dressing as a man should be humiliating but I have a problem if she is submissive to a man how can she feel she's superior? My opinion is equal or less than yes, superior no.

Some people appreciate pantheons with very flawed asshole Gods in them. I think that the idea that the person you serve MUST be better than you is tied up in ego. Sometimes submission has nothing to do with that other person and it's more the agreement that you've made with yourself.

It's not where I want to live my life, and it can be taken past the point of sanity, but I appreciate the restraint of a person service oriented enough to defer to another even in their stupidest moments.\

Interestingly, having tried to tap some masculine Top energy myself, I can ONLY really manage butches and boys when I'm in butch Top mode. My butch dominant energy is PURELY out of John Preston, it's weird, like the only internal world that makes sense in which boys are on top is one where the girls have all been beamed to the goddess planet.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Short answer; Masculinisation might be humiliating to some women, but not many. It's not generally considered shameful to be a man.

Feminisation is humiliating to most men, although not to all. It is, in many ways, considered shameful to be a woman.

Also, this; how-i-discovered-gender-discrimination