Womanless beauty pageants have been around for awhile. They are beauty pageants in which males dress as females and compete to be crowned Miss Whatever. Sometimes females participate, too, dressing as males to escort the pageant contestants to and fro. Womanless pageants are usually held as fund raisers for schools, civic organizations, charities, etc. They are purely amateur events. Unlike the professional drag queen and female impersonator contests held throughout the world, the participants are just your average man on the street, who dons a wig, makeup, heels, and evening gown in order to vie for a crown.
There is a great range in the level of femulation employed by the contestants in womanless pageants. In my opinion, the average womanless pageant contestant is your proverbial "man in a dress." Cheap wigs, flip flops, hairy legs, arms, and chests, sometimes even beards and/or mustaches are what you will see at such events.
But, once in awhile, some contestants take the femulation more seriously and the results can be breathtaking. (Besides admiring their femulation, it also kicks in my T-Dar and I begin wondering if some of the best femulators are trans.)
Mind you, I have never attended or participated in a womanless beauty pageant (not that I do not want to, but I have never had the opportunity). However, I have viewed lots of stories, photos, and videos of these womanless events on the Internet (Google "womanless" and you will find them) and have enjoyed them virtually.
Staci, the main thing I've noticed about these womanless beauty pageants is they mostly seem to occur in small towns, usually in the South. (Not exactly known for being bastions of liberalism.) Yet they don't seem to mind their husbands and sons dressing in feminine finery.
ReplyDeleteLaurie --- I noticed that, too! I live in Southern New England and am unaware of any womanless events being held in these parts, but they seem to occur regularly to the South and Southwest of here. I guess I will have to move to warmer climes if I want to participate.
ReplyDeleteUntil reading about them here, I'd never heard of "womanless beauty pageants" myself, although they certainly sound like they'd be a lot of fun! The closest I came to doing anything like this myself was on a couple of skiing trips I went on to the Victorian snowfields (in Australia) with a university skiing club about a decade ago. One of the events on these trips was something called "Bad Taste Night", a night when we'd all don fancy dress before descending upon one of the local bars (who knew what the other patrons thought when we all came pouring in the door!). Drag was always a (suspiciously) popular choice among the male members of the group on this particular night of the trip, and it was what I went in both times myself. While many of the other guys' efforts in this area were predictably slipshod, I really put a lot of effort into my own looks, and, even though I hadn't had much previous experience in femulation, the general consensus was that I'd done a pretty good job. Lots of people had pictures taken of themselves posing with me; unfortunately, as I didn't possess a camera myself at the time, I never ended up with any pictures of me myself, which was a shame.
ReplyDeleteIn my own corner of the world, I've seen evidence of quite a few events analogous to womanless beauty pageants. For example, I remember once seeing a black-and-white photo of my (long deceased) grandfather all dolled up at a "mock debutante ball" (held God knows how many decades ago), while during some years that I spent living in a country town, I saw a flier in the window of the local supermarket advertising a "topsy-turvy ball" being held in one of the other, nearby towns.
Re Laurie's comment, it actually doesn't surprise me that such events would be held in more "repressive" (if that's not too strong a word) parts of the States. It seems that the more conservative a place, the more outrageous an "outlet" people there need to give vent to their suppressed feelings and desires. It's probably analogous to the way a deeply conservative, conformist country like Japan produces such over-the-top entertainment. That's just my observation, anyway.
Zosimus --- Womanless weddings have a longer history as fundraisers in our South than womanless beauty pageants.
ReplyDeleteA womanless wedding follows a script that tells the story of a shotgun wedding. In the play, males play all the characters including the bride, her attendants, her female relatives, and female guests.
Interesting. It amazes me how so many societies and cultures come up with socially-sanctioned opportunities for their menfolk to don ladies' attire. It suggests to me that many more men would like to do this kind of thing than would probably admit!
ReplyDeleteZosimus --- You wrote, "It suggests to me that many more men would like to do this kind of thing than would probably admit!"
ReplyDeleteI agree with you wholeheartedly.