#byedon

On My Toes

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

Today’s “Not a Civilian?” selection inspired me to retell this story.

One of my first girly moments was related to the ballet. When I was 5-years-old, my mother enrolled my younger sister and I in a dancing school. My class had about 15 girls and one other boy. Once a week, we practiced tap and ballet for an hour under the tutelage of young female instructors.

I have no idea why my mother enrolled us at dancing school. I could understand enrolling my sister, but why did she immerse me, her only son, in that world of femininity? It certainly was not going to make a man out of me. Maybe she detected the girl in me and thought that I would enjoy participating in such a girly activity. If that was her plan, she was correct. I enjoyed every minute of it!

I loved learning dance and being treated like the other girls. The young instructors became my role models. I even recall dreaming (both day-dreaming and sleep-dreaming) about dancing as a ballerina, wearing a pink leotard, tutu, ballet shoes, and makeup with my long blond hair put up in a pony-tail.

In the spring, we had a dance recital. It was held at the Loew's Poli Palace theater in Waterbury. “Registered as a National Historic treasure, the Palace's elegant lobbies, crystal chandeliers, gold detailing, almost 3,500 seat capacity auditorium, along with its Broadway-sized stage, make this the largest seating capacity theater of its kind in all of New England” when it was built in 1922 (Source: Cinema Treasures). So my first appearance on stage was big time!

Since we were appearing on stage, we had to wear makeup. My mother was my makeup lady, but she knew bupkis about stage makeup. So when she applied our makeup, she made my face up just like my sister's face – lipstick, rouge, eyebrow pencil, eye shadow, mascara – the works! Although I was wearing a boy's costume, I had the face of a girl!

Due to tight family finances, we only took dance classes for one year, but that one year immersion in femininity left a life-long impression on this girl.

Wearing Venus

V is for Vancleave High School in Mississippi where this pretty ballerina tip-toes.

Hard to believe! (Professional femulators advertisement from 1969)

Someday Funnies

Wearing Boston Proper

U is for Upper St. Clair (Pennsylvania) High School’s 1997 Best “Boy” Costume Award winner. 

Femulating Tolga Cevik (right)

Go Figure

I have been trying to achieve a female figure ever since I slipped on my mother’s bra and girdle in 1963. In that quest, I have experimented with a wide variety of foundation garments and accessories. I have had some success, but I was never completely satisfied with the results.

Recently losing 25 pounds should have made a difference and I thought that with a few tweaks I could finally grab that brass ring. Two problem areas were holding me back: a flat rear end and a roll of fat above my hips.

(For reference: My foundation garments at the time consisted of an underbust corset worn under a Rago Style 2202 long-line bra and Rago Style 6207 high-waist panty girdle. Spanx open-bust panty bodysuit smoothed out the trio.)

The underbust corset ended at the waistline and caused a roll of fat to sit on my hips just below the bottom of the corset. I thought the solution might be a wider underbust corset that extended below the waistline to rein in the roll of fat.

I found just thing on Amazon: frawirshau lace-up underbust corset. It only cost $12.99 and it worked! The roll disppeared!

You’ve read my thoughts here in the past about eschewing butt pads to add some curves to my flat rear. And I was pretty much resigned to those flat facts. But on the heels of my success in getting rid of my roll, I was tempted by Rago Style 915 high-waist padded panty. The price ($27.49) was reasonable, so I ordered the panty and now I have an ass!

The new trio of shapewear works so well that I don’t need Spanx to smooth things out!

I am completely satisfied with my figure now... a promise of femininity fulfilled!

Wearing Boston Proper

T is for Trinity Heights Christian Academy in Shreveport, LA, where this charming young laddy struts his stuff in the school’s 1984 womanless beauty pageant

Femulator, circa 1895

Girl Voice Trolling

Gwen filled me in about the vloggers I wrote about here on Monday.

As a frequent femulator hunter myself, I wanted to give you some background on your column from Monday.

Because many online games like Fortnite and others allow for audio chat, it has become popular to prank others by pretending to be someone you aren’t – to fool people in chat and then record it and post it. A popular choice obviously is to pretend to be female and attempt to seduce unsuspecting males then have a big reveal. Not surprisingly, most are NSFW. Some impersonators use voice changers, but there are a lot of extremely skilled female voice emulators. Many have even made very helpful videos on how to do a female voice.

Here is an example featuring Tippy (one of the best) with friends. And here is Tippy's how to video.

Simply search YouTube for “female voice prank,” “girl voice trolling,” or “girl voice tutorial” for a lot more.

Another, smaller group of pranksters go on video chat programs dressed as females to again prank unsuspecting men. Sometimes they even use fake breasts to be more successful like this Russian here.

Search “pretend girl omegle” to find more examples.

What makes Natt (from the video you found) so impressive and unique is that he can do the voice and he has the look. He started out as a girl voice troller, then got a wig and makeup and started doing video pranks on omegle.

I have been duly educated. Thank you, Gwen!

S is for Southside High School in Florence, South Carolina, where lovely Harry Cannon won the Miss Cutie Pie contest in 1970.

Vladimir Luxuria

Smarty Panties

Over the weekend, I spent some free time populating my new Pinterest board, Women with their Gurls, with appropriate images that I collected over the years or that I found on other Pinterest boards.

Since I was on a roll, I decided to create yet another Pinterest board called Smarty Panties, my collection of “smart” humor in a femulating vain (pun intended). 

I have been collecting cartoons, comic strips and other attempts at crossdressing humor for a very long time and have amassed over 7,000 images! Some of it is nothing to write here about, but separating the wheat from the chaff, there is some very good stuff in my agglomeration, which I have posted on my Smarty Panties board.

Enjoy!

Wearing MDWow

R is for Regis High School in New York City, where John Quinn played Portia in a 1942 production of The Merchant of Venice. According to the school’s yearbook, “In the coveted role of Portia, John Quinn, who has gained a reputation for his fine feminine portrayals, skillfully bore out his characterization of the wealthy young woman.”

The always lovely Marie-Christine Bouvier rocks a skirt suit in the hotel Quality Hotel Plaza Dresden.

Monday Miss Mash

We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby Dept.

Zoe sent me links to two videos that amazed me!

They are vlogs (video blogs) by two young femulators. One is by vlogger F1NN5TER, who dresses in a skimpy Santa’s helper costume (à la Mean Girls) and walks to McDonald’s for an order of fries. The other is by Natt, who switches back and forth from her male voice to a very convincing female voice. At 1:50 spot of the video, Natt encounters F1NN5TER.

F1NN5TER and Natt regularly vlog en femme. It fascinates me how these young femulators are very open about their femulating! I must explore this medium further.

Queerantine Dept.

Jenn sent me an article about a couple in Paris who spent the quarantine dressing in each other’s clothing. The Vogue article documents the outfits that the male wore. As I wrote to Jenn, “I wish my wife and I were the same size, but it's not even close!”

When in France Dept.

“I'm a Boy, Love French-Girl Style, and Want to Try These 5 Basics” is the title of a WhoWhatWear article by Bobby Schuessler, who writes, “Honestly, even though I’m a guy, I often find myself saving various French-girl outfits on Instagram to potentially test out in my own day-to-day life.” Bobby proceeds to show the five French girl outfits that he pines for.

Say it with Your Eyes Dept.

Makeup Tip of the Year: Thanks to the Trump Flu, we all may be wearing masks for the foreseeable future, so emphasize your eyes rather than your lips when doing your makeup.

Wearing Venus

P brings us to Pinellas Park High in Florida and Prospect High in Illinois, where we find today’s “Not a Civilians.” Their girlish disguises are one thing, but what really gives them away are their male haircuts or should I say hairdos?

Gary Beach femulating on stage in a La Cage aux Folles.

Someday Funnies

Wearing Ramy Brook

O is for Oh, I think the Ouachita (LA) High School girl on the left is Not a Civilian!

Alexander Khanin