Imagine yourself...
F.R.R. Mallory
April 13, 2006

It's easy enough to watch a movie and wonder what it might be like to be another person. It's play, this creative exercise of the imagination. We know it's not serious, no one would really think it's about us, the inner us. We're allowed to play. If I could be a man for a day, what secret known only to men would I want to discover?

Steven Doloff's essay "The Opposite Sex" asks this question of young men and women in their twenties, which he then documents rather vaguely in his essay. He seems cynically surprised when the young women want to explore the "envy of men's physical and social privileges and curiosity regarding men's true feelings concerning women" (778). While young men want to avoid the assignment and present themselves as "envious of very little that [is] female, and [are] curious about nothing" (778). This is an unfair sampling and not enough information is given to explore the reasons the gender groups responded so differently to the assignment. Yet Doloff ventures into the statement "do I really need to prove that young people even now are still burdened with sexist stereotypes and sexist self images not nearly as vestigial as we would like to think?" (779). This is a big leap. Does the response of Doloff's students really prove they are burdened with these issues in the way Doloff describes them?

Role-play sounds innocent and can be but isn't necessarily lacking of risk. Women play dress up from the time they are quite small and engage in role-playing games and interactions as part of their expected childhood female behaviors. Do boys have equal opportunities to this type of play? What happens if a boy tries to role-play dolls instead of pushing trucks around on the carpet?

At 20 a young woman knows that role-play is within the parameters of acceptable female behavior - she is allowed to play, without serious consequence beyond possible humorous humiliation. It is a low risk activity. Doloff doesn't address this. At 20 a young man knows that role-play is not within the parameters of acceptable male behavior except as specifically proscribed within masculine represented alternatives, such as dressing up to play baseball or football or in militaristic garb to play boy-scout. Role-play as a female or through the female model is considered high risk with direct real life consequences. Doloff doesn't address this.

The male response in this essay is telling when several male students "frantically [sought] medical help to turn back into men more quickly" (778). While others "...more evasively...engaged in totally asexual business office routines" (778). Doloff equates the male's perspective on reaching the end of the assignment as "equivalent to that of jumping up after having been forced to sit on a lit stove" (779). Given this as the writing environment experienced by these young men can Doloff legitimately move toward drawing conclusions about these young persons possession of "sexist stereotypes" and "sexist self images?" (779). Did the conditions present during the assignment foster the stereotype? Do the young men, absent of these conditions, express themselves in a sexist stereotypical way?

Doloff describes the results of his assignment as predictable but assignments aren't created within the perfection of a vacuum. As creator of the assignment he took part in designing the structure through which the assignment would be delivered so it becomes possible to consider that he contributed to the predictability of his results.

The risks young people face in exposing differences in their sexual preferences cannot be ignored. When a young man is brutally murdered with his body left draped across a fence as warning, it affects all who witness it. (Matthew Wayne Shepard, October 12, 1998) Role-play can expose well-hidden secrets or offer equally insecure people a glimpse of themselves through the exposure of another person's nature. These are real life consequences that the innocence of a writing assignment might reveal and until an individual has grown into their self-confidence or is placed in an environment free from such risks, it is unlikely a young person would take that risk. Why would an English assignment be worthy of such an invitation to danger?

I admired what Doloff wrote about his young female students. I appreciated the gusto with which they were able to engage in the role-play. I enjoyed their curiosity about perceived male privileges, sexual escapades and the nature of men's real feelings about women. Are these young women sexist stereotypical? Stereotypical, perhaps. Sexist? I did not feel Doloff met the burden of labeling them as sexist or presenting behaviors that "expressed prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially: discrimination against women" (Merriam-Webster) Perhaps it is within their rather joyous response that my sympathy expands toward the young men. This essay, for me, was more about the limitations imposed by fear of sexual identity on men - for the boundaries and dangers we continue to foist upon them with a nation of prudish hypocrites screaming outrage over anyone having sex - ever - in any position.

It is nearly impossible for a woman to cross dress. Women adopted all forms of male clothing in the early 1900's and never looked back. It is nearly impossible for a man to cross dress - if he does he is subject to all manner of assault, from both men and women. He isn't allowed to wear bangles and pantyhose that chafe. He isn't allowed to desire himself objectified, soft and vulnerable - pretty. With estimates that as many as 25% of the population of American men have on more than one occasion worn female undergarments and as many as 5% who cross dress regularly the conclusions Doloff draws do not seem to be supported by the curiosity and actions of a much wider sampling of the population.

What would I do for a day as a male? Freud was right. It's all about penis envy. It's the only part of the human body I've never experienced, except in my imagination. Beyond that, I'd rather be a bird for a day and fly - or a fish and swim. I know men are curious about women in nearly identical ways to the way women are curious about men. That tells me our similarities are greater than our differences. I know men care what women truly feel about them. I have a son (a young man) who discusses the topic constantly, so do his friends. I know men would like to have the freedom to truly share a woman's closet, without laughter or criticism - to play. Maybe some day we will stop painting gender roles with fear.

Work Cited

Doloff, Steven, The Opposite Sex, Literature For Composition, Essays, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, 7th ed. Ed. Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, William E. Cain. New York, Pearson/Longman, 2005. 778-9

Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.m-w.com/

Mosher, William D., Ph.D., Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15-44 Years of Age, United States, 2002, Anjani Chandra,
Ph.D.; and Jo Jones, Ph.D., Division of Vital Statistics, 2002

I am sometimes asked why I use a nom-de-plume or pseudonym. I have used one for so long that the reasons have changed - several times. In the beginning or when I first made the choice to use a pseudonym I was working on personal identity issues that emerged from the recent death of my romantic partner. In the absence of this person's physical presence in my life I was left with an enormous void labeled "who are YOU?"

I didn't know the answer to that question. I didn't know who I was as an adult human being. I found I was uncomfortable with almost all assigned labels - labels used to inform me and the world around me about who and what I was. The very few labels that remained were parent and child. In this process I felt primarily fear and rebellion. Don't tell me who I am. I recognized that the course of my adulthood was the acceptance and wearing of all kinds of descriptions about me, most of which were applied to me like wallpaper. Was that who I was? Human wallpaper?

I began a deconstruction process that in varied forms continues today. Since I began more serious writing during this same period it is not surprising that I wished to remove my wallpaper and my tells in the name I write under. I didn't want you to have pre-conceptions informing you about how you should read me. So I backed up off of my various names into the variation which you read today. As a name it is vague, minimally suggestive of anything in particular.

Interesting to this experience is that I also did not wish to present obvious gender tells to the reader. I have numerous 'muddy' reasons for this aspect of my choice, none of those reasons sufficiently sound enough to present here at this point except to say that I feel we use too many 'tells' against each other to limit the degree of intimacy which we experience with and toward each other.

I also wanted to intentionally stop my own process of assigning roles to others. I am not always successful but merely by engaging the process actively I have been surprised at how much progress I can and do make. I want you to be you - a vast magnificent mind/consciousness of limitless potential who across this infinite and nonexistant void is connecting with me on exactly the same level. You might end up with opinions about me and ideas about me because that too is the nature of how we are human - but in the beginning, before either of us limit the other, we can be our truth which is expansive beyond the vastness of conception.

I'm still working on it, but on my very best days I won't see your race, gender, culture, caste, heritage, creed, orientation - I will simply see you, without your wallpaper.

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