You KNOW you want it, don't you?
Made this one for no one in particular, though I have Simone, Victoria, and Jennifer in mind for the model, where like a real illicit drug, you think you have the upper hand, but in the end, you are a slave to the cravings, and just gotta have it.
It also begs the question of "What exactly IS femininity, and what makes someone a woman?" There is of course the whole physiological definitions, along with all sorts of hormonal, emotional, intellectual and even natural modes of what is female.
It can be so complex that we often define it as what masculinity isn't, giving a broad range of things that are contrary to what we think is feminine. We even do that in the case of sissies, which extend to an often times ludicrous hyper-femininity. They can act like females, but they aren't, and their true gender is brought out as part of the illusion, putting them somewhere between man and woman.
I guess it doesn't help that what femininity is has changed as time continues on. Just when you think you can understand a woman, any woman (!) the rules get fuzzy and evolve. Women don't even understand women .. though they are still much closer than men will ever be. Some things are innate apparently, but I am even more sure that much is learned, however subconsciously.
Reminds me of an old joke:
A man was walking along a Florida beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it, and out popped a genie.I had the picture in a caption setting for a few weeks now, but hadn't figured out for sure how I wanted to play it out. The GF and I went to a high end store (well high-end for me, Lord and Taylor) looking for a certain cologne that isn't carried in many places. I thought back to that experience with the sales ladies appealing to women's vanity in pushing them to buy the fragrances they were selling. What if they told ALL the truth behind their sales pitch? Perhaps being more enigmatic might help them sell a bit more product? Either way, that experience inspired me to flesh the caption out this way .. and no, they didn't have the cologne in stock, only online, and I'm not about to buy something without smelling it first!
The genie said, "OK, You released me from the lamp. This is the fourth time this month, and I'm getting a little sick of these wishes so you can forget about three... You only get one wish!"
The man sat, and thought about it for a while and said, "I've always wanted to go to Hawaii, but I'm scared to fly, and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?"
The genie laughed and said, "That's impossible!!!
Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete -- how much steel!! No, think of another wish."
The man said, "OK, I'll try to think of a really good wish."
Finally, he said, "I've been married and divorced four times. My wives always said that I don't care and that I'm insensitive.
So, I wish that I could understand women, know how they feel inside, and what they're thinking when they give me the silent treatment. Know why they're crying, know what they really want when they say "nothing" and know how to make them truly happy."
The genie said, "Do you want that bridge to be two lanes or four?
I wanna hurt you just to hear you screaming my name!
You have to love a "TG Caption" where the transformation itself is only obliquely implied. Very nicely done, especially with the short amount of text :)
ReplyDeleteAnd what an absolutely delectable source piccie. I am heartily tempted to caption it myself!
Thanks for this one!
/huggles
If I have it saved, I'll shoot it over to you. I'm not sure if I had just plucked it from the site and put it right into a caption setting or if I had saved it before hand.
DeleteFrom reading you and others that aren't found of magic and prefer more realistic means, I have really tried to be vague in how things happen .. and make something else the focus of the story that is tangential to the change itself.
No worries, I went and google-image searched it :) I have a decent copy for a caption now.... Just waiting until I'm in the mood to write the story :)
Delete/hugs
I like the idea of "Can femininity be controlled?" I often think that in a body swap or transformation, there has got to be some degree of the body getting what it wants. But then again, I also like the question "What is femininity?" I guess any woman would tell you something different. I recently read a comic that basically put it out there that feminism wasn't about women trying to be like men; it's about women claiming their own view of femininity, whether that is pretty dresses and high heels and make-up or putting on layers and following it up with a hoodie & tennis shoes.
ReplyDeleteI think Feminism is technically the right to choose how they wish to be and act, and not dictated by societal norms. Perhaps they want to wear a pretty dress and heels because it makes them feel good, not because they are trying to please a man.
DeleteGreat caption Dee!
ReplyDeleteI think the problem in defining femininity is that in today's modern world women have worked very hard to be looked upon as equals. Every major difference between man and woman (save for pure physical differences) have been torn down just to achieve that all powerful and important equality. The word 'tend' seems to come up all too often when describing femininity.
Women TEND to be more emotional, but plenty of female executives leave emotions at the front door . Women TEND to be more loving, but I'm sure we've all known a mean girl or two. Women TEND to be softer, but try telling a female body builder that she's not a woman. Women TEND to be more sympathetic, but we've all known self centered women. Women TEND to be.... so in reality when we want to definitively lay out what femininity is we're left with nothing but a handful of contrasting ideals that are probably best left in the past.
In a way most TG captions are making women that harken back to the past (whether that be the 1940s, the 1800s or the middle ages). The only true act or action a transformed man can experience as woman that he couldn't experience as a man are the purely physical ones. I'm not talking about having softer skin or longer hair, I'm talking about their genetalia and/or breasts (and if we really get down to brass tacks breasts only come into play when you think of lactating).
I'm certainly not taking anything away from those that feel they are trapped in the wrong body. But it's easier to say we feel masculine or feminine as opposed to strictly defining what femininity or masculinity is.
two things I do know about women . I well only be a minute means you well be sitting about for an hour and if it is right today it well be wrong tomorrow !
ReplyDeleteI want to wax lyrical here about gender roles, but I lack the time to do it justice!
ReplyDeleteSuffice to say that I generally agree, so many people plumb for hyper-femininity, based on the ideals of different genders laid down in the mid 1950s (in turn based on the Victorian [hack, spit] ideals of gender roles) rather than on what we actually experience. The difficulty is, I feel (and I may be wrong), that everyone has completely different notions of femininity and masculinity and so when appealing to wider audience we tend toward the parody and the extreme - the ones that everyone can identify with. The blue ball hanging above the surface of the moon, if that analogy serves, as we can all identify that as Earth, so it is with what it is to be female - we tend to see extreme versions as that is the most zoomed out and least nuanced version.
I recall that some of my favourite TG-themed stories back in the late 90s were the ones that explored the lesser parts of femininity. There was one that was essentially a difference in clothing and reaction and nothing else. I forget the title now, but a boy dressed as a girl, was accepted as one, but behaved the same as both a boy and a boy dressed as a girl. It fascinated me more than most other stories at the time (and now in retrospect) precisely because the only difference was purely outward - the clothing (and hair). In that sense it challenged the notion that femininity was any different to masculinity.
My own thoughts on this are, as you have probably guessed, that there is little difference. That there IS a difference is still true. There must be something, or else why would I choose to be identified by a female moniker online and seek to wear clothes designed for women? I'm just not certain I can explain that any more than anyone else can. Or, perhaps, it's like you say - people impose a difference and thus my own inclinations are a reaction to the commonly accepted extreme versions of femininity and masculinity whereby my own proclivities I feel align more with femininity than masculinity. Hmm.
Okay, you've got me thinking.
Again.
tl;dr - I like your caption. It's lovely. ;)
Perhaps at some point, seeing a guy dressed up in female clothing will be the same way .. just a "oh whatever!" reaction. I saw someone that was transitioning a few months ago in a store with her parents (I would think she was about 21 or 22 or so) and she was semi-passable (facial contours were still quite chiseled and posture wasn't quite right yet) .. and pretty much the clerks were all, "oh look, its a guy" a quick giggle and then nothing else. I so wanted to go up to her and give her some support, but I didn't want to draw attention to her and honestly, the fact I read her probably wouldn't have helped her self-esteem.
DeleteNo matter what, there is some social conditioning at play in the masculine vs femininity debate, along with posture, vocal inflection, and how the appearance of power is intuited.
I'm surprised that I hadn't seen this sort of idea turn into a common TG trope. Love potions and the like are some what a regular occurrence in tg caps and story's, but the essence of femininity? This is the first time I've seen it.
ReplyDeleteIt's a nice play on the secret and even the not so secret desires of everyone that reads these caps. Wiling but with a bit of a bite to it, like a forced caption. Getting what you wish for sort of thing.
I can see why you had the model set aside with me in mind, but I do have to say that with that song at the bottom, it almost feels like you DID make this post for me! :D LOVE ALICE! (glances towards her mind on card Alice cooper collectible beside her )