Student CAMP: 

This past weekend I was the maid of honor in a wedding. The six of you that regularly follow my column may recall that I have been to two weddings in the past month—the first one, a few weeks ago, was a lesbian commitment ceremony. This was the straight one, or at any rate, a man and a woman were getting married and it was in a perfectly legal manner. Had it been any other manner, lord only knows what the relatives would have said. (Also, I have realized that one of the side benefits of being a homosexual is that in all likelihood one family or another is going to avoid it like the plague, which means that there is a significantly lower chance of a fistfight breaking out at the reception between various uncles.)

My mother, upon finding out that I was going to be in a wedding, first asked, "Is it a gay wedding?" and then informed me that she hoped they would make me wear a pink frippy dress. I’m not even sure what "frippy" means but it sounds mildly frightening. She would have been relatively pleased—on the day of the wedding I could be seen in a blue dress, makeup, nail polish, and pantyhose. I did draw the line at heels, but nonetheless the general effect left the rest of my friends in awed hysterics. Conversations ensued that went something like, "You’re wearing a dress." "I know." "You’re wearing a dress!" "I know." "But you’re WEARING A DRESS!" "I hate you." One would think that before this weekend I had only ever been sited in a jerkin and a loincloth that I had made myself.

I felt like I was in drag and am in the process of attempting to systemically track down and destroy any and all pictures taken of the event. I also feel like I might have to shave my head in retaliation to the entire turn of events. I have a reputation to uphold, after all.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I have a problem with dressing up. It’s more that I find the machinations of the way that women are expected to do so to be perfectly ridiculous. Fashion seems to be largely based on how impossibly uncomfortable it can make women. Take waxing, for example. Waxing is something that I have never done to myself, nor is it something that I think I ever will. For those of you who are bewildered by this choice, I would cordially remind you that anyone who allows molten wax to be lathered on their body and then ripped off has lost any sense of species self-preservation that they may have been born with. Perhaps I have no right to talk—I haven’t shaved my legs in several years. I just don’t see the point; I live in New Hampshire and hang out with militant lesbians of the Northeast.

Pantyhose are similarly bizarre. One may as well wrap one’s legs in PVC pipes. I was told once that their creator had lived a miserable existence and died unhappy, and to be perfectly honest, I can’t bring myself to care.

I have to admit that one thing I admire about my fellow sapphists is the higher-than-normal percentage of us that do not subscribe to the feminine beauty myth. We are not the sorts who are wont to wear girdles or makeup. On the down side, our community’s continual embrace of the mullet is clearly a sign that we need to embrace something, anything else.

I can only imagine that humanity’s love of making itself uncomfortable will only increase into epic proportions. I am waiting for the day that lopping off limbs becomes trendy. This could conceivably be the next step in the right direction for evolution, at least—the trendy people already appear to be starving themselves to death.