The chemical reaction to male femininity

https://www.bexthackery.co.uk/post/the-chemical-reaction-to-male-femininity

I had a theory that since the dawn of time, cis and heterosexual women have been attracted to the feminine in men. The typically feminine - the vulnerable, the caring, and the promiscuous flirt. That theory was confirmed this week at the Grammys 2021, when every cis, heterosexual woman went quiet behind their phone screens wondering whether they want to be Harry Styles, or if they too want their boyfriends to sport a mint-coloured feather boa, some are even sat questioning whether that makes them a lot less hetro, and a lot more gay.

Courtship in the cavemen era was said to be a case of capturing a woman, and dragging her back to his cave by her hair (as one insightful New Yorker cartoon taught us) and ta-da, she was his. And whilst we have made it an unwritten rule that you buy a girl a drink before you see if you’re allowed to pull her hair, for a large portion of cis, hetro females, there is still something so painfully brainwashing about being ‘his woman.’ When I find myself wound up in a relationship, my future self clings to the aura around me, like some sort of continuous out-of-body experience. My higher self watches down over me, crossed-armed and tapping her foot, disgusted at the way I minimise myself to be his ‘Mrs’, like a teeny tiny Alice in Wonderland consuming a potion to make her small enough to enter a world of magic. Although, Alice only swallows a questionable drug for a children’s story, I however, swallow my pride. My opinions are sugarcoated if they even leave my mind, most of them stay safely locked inside from fear of sounding too angry. I drop my plans to go to an art gallery alone because he says he has time to fit me into his schedule, so my little Doc Martens slide on and I run on my merry way across the centre of London. My higher self waits out the dregs of the relationship, her full leather co-ord mirrors her bad bitch stare as she peers down at me, tucked up on the sofa in his T-shirt and boxers, curled up like a beaten puppy. Silently screaming she watches my usual, huskily brash voice turn into a timid one that sounds like a baby’s. We both simultaneously think “what the fuck is that?”

Having always been a tomboy and much more masculine than I might appear, any of my relationships have just been a game of tug of war that latest as long as Donald Trump’s presidency - a game of ‘who is the King of power.’ Yet being a tomboy that still loves a cheap Zara heel, I’m always first to give in.

I’ve always been attracted (or more so dragged towards) to the overtly ‘masculine’ type. I remember one of my exes relished in the fact that when he stood in the mirror and I behind him, I was invisible due to the muscles he had created in the gym seven nights a week, like the Dr Jekyll of our teen romance. He felt he had done his job as the protective boyfriend because he could sweep me away should I ever come to face harm, behind his back as if I wasn’t there. Nothing. My sixteen year old self mistook her cavewoman luring for being attracted and potentially in love with the eighteen year old able to make me so small I could fit quietly into his pocket. But now that we get older and we learn these small, little things such as the complications of love and the feminist view, some of us become more attracted to the skirt our cavemen have fashioned out of animal skins (fake and vegan, of course) rather than the mighty wooden club that he possesses.

Just like millions of women came rushing to Harry Styles’ Gucci frilled, powder blue side when Candace Owens tweeted “bring back manly men” in response to his Vogue cover, those same millennial women have almost been brought to tears this week due to the fact that, just like a teenager with a crush, they have come to the realisation that they will never be Mrs Styles. And most could say that it’s doesn’t matter what Harry Styles throws on, and that if he wore a bin bag we would all still be attracted to the once-upon-a-time boy from Worcestershire. But it was the same with Prince and his skin-tight trousers that cinched his waist, Jon Bon Jovi and his denim hot pants, David Bowie with glitter lavender makeup that matched a glitter lavender blazer when he was pictured drunk in Paris. The list of attractive men who dress femme, is endless.

Male femininity seems to make me blush and feel all sorts of new feelings that a past boyfriend or lover has never been fill me with. But then that would be no surprise since my “type” seems to either be, or wannabe ‘burly man.’ And without sounding too problematic and very “real men wear pink”, I wonder if it’s because men in tutus seem more on our level than lumberjack flannel? If other tomboys like me feel empowered by a man that feels no fear in wearing a Gucci frilled dress, because it takes neither of our masculinities away, and our frills make us no smaller than the other. And that is the where the chemical reaction sparks. That we can share our power and our vegan leather, animal print skirts. That it is sexier not when our shadow is cast in the mirror, yet instead when our silhouettes are an equal outline of twinning Gucci black leather suits, and nothing won underneath.