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Jun. 14th, 2009 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damkiannaSpent yesterday wearing a pair of kangas - possibly the right word for that is "doti", according to that particular page. It is entirely possible that I am being horrible and appropriative, but the elegant dress is ridiculously comfortable (when I tie it right, that is), so I am having some trouble convincing myself that maybe I ought to give it up. I stumbled across both of those pages while doing research for a fic, bibbled about for a few months, and then got myself down to the fabric store and bought a couple pieces of approximately the right dimensions - they probably don't qualify as "real" kangas in some sense, because they don't have the proverbs, or even the borders.
And then I spent the evening out contradancing with my sister - not in the kangas, I changed into some of the nice swirly skirts that I favor for contras. And no, when I say "some skirts", I'm neither exaggerating nor failing to pay attention to my word choice. At some point, I formed the peculiar habit of wearing three or four skirts at a time; I enjoyed the weight of them and the swish around my ankles. And now I literally can't wear just one skirt at a time - or I can, but I feel terribly uncomfortable, very underdressed. Like I only have underwear on, or something.
We managed to avoid Creepyface for the entire night - that is what I've dubbed this guy who's been at the last few dances we've been to. The last time, he asked my sister to dance, and then me, so we've gotten a pretty good idea of his M.O.: he asks a girl to dance and gives her a bit of a trial run before the dancing starts, to see how much spinning she can handle, and then dances with her. If she's not very good, it's a relatively ordinary dance; not very uncomfortable. If she's all right, though, then he pulls out all of the stops. During the course of a single dance, he: kept using the excuse of having to take hands four to twine our fingers together; spent even more time than a contra demands with his hand on the small of my back; and kept giving me this peculiar stare that I assume was supposed to be some kind of variant on a come-hither look.
People at contras are not generally creepers, despite the excuses of a decent amount of physical contact and eye contact (it helps keep you from getting dizzy when you swing somebody, if you look at their eyes the whole time). But this guy, man. Yikes.
I've been thinking about it since, and I'm pretty sure that contra's had a decent amount of influence on my perspective on certain issues. It's not uncommon in the least for men to contradance with skirts on; in fact, it is often a decent way to tell whether a guy is really good at contradancing, because while not all of the good ones wear skirts, usually all of the ones who wear skirts are good ones. I told all my suitemates about contradancing, and one of them looked up some videos on Youtube. She watched for a few seconds, and then peered a little closer, and said some variation on, "Oh my god, is that guy wearing a skirt?" And my reaction was "... Yes?" It actually took me a second to figure out that, yeah, that probably seemed weird to her.
Anyway, the point is that I think going to contra has managed to ... to unmark feminine clothing for me, at least partially. We discussed this a little bit in Linguistic Anthropology, how maleness is unmarked, is the default, and how it makes wearing something stereotypically feminine into a statement. Except I'm not sure that's true for me anymore. I usually wear men's jeans, because I find them comfortable, and also I hate shopping and they're crazy easy to shop for; same goes for the pack of plain white tank tops I bought for myself from the men's section earlier this year. And the rest of the time, I wear three or four skirts because I like the swirl. To me, a guy in a skirt - well, okay, he might be making a statement, but that statement is "I would make a great partner at a contradance, and also I am capable of appreciating the awesomeness that is a swirly skirt", and that's all.
And then I spent the evening out contradancing with my sister - not in the kangas, I changed into some of the nice swirly skirts that I favor for contras. And no, when I say "some skirts", I'm neither exaggerating nor failing to pay attention to my word choice. At some point, I formed the peculiar habit of wearing three or four skirts at a time; I enjoyed the weight of them and the swish around my ankles. And now I literally can't wear just one skirt at a time - or I can, but I feel terribly uncomfortable, very underdressed. Like I only have underwear on, or something.
We managed to avoid Creepyface for the entire night - that is what I've dubbed this guy who's been at the last few dances we've been to. The last time, he asked my sister to dance, and then me, so we've gotten a pretty good idea of his M.O.: he asks a girl to dance and gives her a bit of a trial run before the dancing starts, to see how much spinning she can handle, and then dances with her. If she's not very good, it's a relatively ordinary dance; not very uncomfortable. If she's all right, though, then he pulls out all of the stops. During the course of a single dance, he: kept using the excuse of having to take hands four to twine our fingers together; spent even more time than a contra demands with his hand on the small of my back; and kept giving me this peculiar stare that I assume was supposed to be some kind of variant on a come-hither look.
People at contras are not generally creepers, despite the excuses of a decent amount of physical contact and eye contact (it helps keep you from getting dizzy when you swing somebody, if you look at their eyes the whole time). But this guy, man. Yikes.
I've been thinking about it since, and I'm pretty sure that contra's had a decent amount of influence on my perspective on certain issues. It's not uncommon in the least for men to contradance with skirts on; in fact, it is often a decent way to tell whether a guy is really good at contradancing, because while not all of the good ones wear skirts, usually all of the ones who wear skirts are good ones. I told all my suitemates about contradancing, and one of them looked up some videos on Youtube. She watched for a few seconds, and then peered a little closer, and said some variation on, "Oh my god, is that guy wearing a skirt?" And my reaction was "... Yes?" It actually took me a second to figure out that, yeah, that probably seemed weird to her.
Anyway, the point is that I think going to contra has managed to ... to unmark feminine clothing for me, at least partially. We discussed this a little bit in Linguistic Anthropology, how maleness is unmarked, is the default, and how it makes wearing something stereotypically feminine into a statement. Except I'm not sure that's true for me anymore. I usually wear men's jeans, because I find them comfortable, and also I hate shopping and they're crazy easy to shop for; same goes for the pack of plain white tank tops I bought for myself from the men's section earlier this year. And the rest of the time, I wear three or four skirts because I like the swirl. To me, a guy in a skirt - well, okay, he might be making a statement, but that statement is "I would make a great partner at a contradance, and also I am capable of appreciating the awesomeness that is a swirly skirt", and that's all.
