Addy Shi
Issue 18 • Spring 2017
It is tragic. It certainly is not pure. I could never think of my projection of masculinity to be pure. But this is my experience, and my experience of gender has been about wanting to be exactly what it is I could never be. Some days I show the world I am a femme, some days I am a fuckboy, usually I am a fuckboy femme. But I am always yearning for this unattainable projection of pure masculinity... the pure masculinity of an east asian boy who wears a dress simply because he is. Perhaps it all has very little to do with how the audience views him, but has all the more to do with the purpose behind constructing him... (Some things like going to a gay bar are better left untouched by academia.) I have always felt a certain sense of doom, kind of like a wisdom tooth aching forever but never really growing in the back of my cave of a mouth. But I see the future, you know, I see it as a present we haven't become conscious of yet, where this no longer feels like a solitary expedition but is communal. What does it mean when a girl who identifies as a girl wants to be a beautiful boy? What do I want to hear? I want someone to tell me I am beautiful, like I am a beautiful boy.