(en)gender

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve read or heard that when a CD/TG goes through a “slutty phase” it’s because they’re just going through their female adolescence, like all girls go through – experimenting with styles, wearing too much makeup, etc., I’d be rich woman.
While it may be true that teenaged girls experiement with makeup and clothes, it also occurred to me that I had never gone through a “slutty” phase. So I started asking other women – partners, friends, sisters – and amazingly enough, none of them had.
One woman (a trans-partner as well) pointed out that the “slutty” girls in high school – the ones everyone knew would have sex with nearly anyone – were the only ones who dressed that way. (She also pointed out that in retrospect, those girls were most likely subjected to sexual abuse or violence as children or young adults, which I think is entirely accurate).
Most of us were busy covering up our newly-exploding bodies, dealing with what it felt like to have curves, to be looked at sexually. It wasn’t easy. But the last thing we were doing was dressing like sluts – believe me, it comes as quite a shock to have thighs, get your period, grow breasts – and suddenly find that your male friends look at you differently. A lot of women I know just covered up – in whatever ways possible – until they’d made peace with their new bodies. And for a lot of us, that didn’t happen until college, if then.
So what are trannies really doing when they dress slutty? It’s my feeling that what they’re doing is indulging in a “look” that they – socialized as men – think is powerful. It’s part of the mythology that women are in control, that we use men to suit out purposes – you know, the “cold hearted bitch” myth that even Robin Givens is debunking on Oprah this week.
And that’s not so much what bothers me. What bothers me is how quickly we as partners are to accept this “received wisdom.” This crap wasn’t explained this way by a partner – I’m pretty sure of it. Because it does not compute. Any woman who has been raised as and lived as a woman knows it doesn’t compute, but we tell each other things like this to feel better about the way our partners are objectifying women in their choice of clothes. We fail to inform our partners, too.
The most beautiful women I know are not masters of their realm. They are usually more insecure than other women who don’t play the beauty game, actually. I was friends with a woman who was beautiful who would always make sure people had noticed her when she walked into a room; it helped boost her confidence, because otherwise she felt she had nothing to give. She waited by the phone like every other girl, wondering if he was going to call like he said he would.
So please – let’s drop this little bromide. Every time a partner tells you her partner is going through the “slutty” phase, just ask her: did you have one? My money is on the fact that she didn’t go through a “slutty” phase, and neither did any other woman she knows.