Now that we live in Andy Warhol's fabled future where everyone has their own tv show, one starts to see familiar tv personalities more routinely and in unexpected places. You might run into the first chick voted off the island as she's at the store buying tampons, or you might run into Kayne from Project Runway at the Gypsy Tea Room as a friend of mine did recently.
But here's the eerie, peculiar encounter I had today, and this is one Emily Post never covered: what if the person you see out & about was the feature on a Discovery Channel surgical gender reassignment special? This happened to me today, and I really tried not to be obvious that I was having an emotional conflict. Is it rude to observe "I saw you on television" if the nature of the sighting was so intensely personal?
I realize I don't know this person at all and having seen them on television in no way connects us. However, I have seen his/her manly/womanly bits through a filmy haze of blurred dots, and it sort of seems that if someone has put themselves on such display, well, I'm guessing modesty is not a factor.
Anyway, the bizarre part is that although I'm pretty much opposed to plastic surgery, I found myself thinking that if they were going to bother with the rhinoplasty (which they did in order to render the specimen more feminine in appearance), they should have thinned the bridge of his/her nose a bit more dramatically.
Strange times, these. What's the old proverb? May you be blessed not to live in interesting times. Quite.
18 comments:
I guess it'd have been really, really rude to say, "I've seen your naked body on TV!"
mauser*girl - Now THAT, is exactly what I should have said, darling! How about "I admire your restraint in only having the C cup rather than the D cup installed?" Possibilities abound. By the way, he/she is working in a shop I frequent. More opportunities will arise, no doubt.
fathairybastard - yuppers.
OMG, she/he probably only did it for the SHOES, beatch. Did you think to check them out?
I woulda probably blurted out something like "are you outta your fuckin' mind gettin' rid of a perfectly good dick like that?" But then I'm not all that sophisticated.
I suppose giggling and pointing was out of the question? :D
Same situation arose in my neck o' the woods when a local Deputy decided he would rather be a she and had it plastered all over the front page of the local paper...in a THREE PART SERIES, no less.
Kinda makes one wonder if he/she isn't ASKING for attention, methinks?!
I know what you mean, though. Being the shy and reserved person I am (NOT), I just SMILED and waved real big and said "Hey, How are you?" Like I'd known him/her forever and he/she had just forgotten who I was. I love the look on their faces when I do that...
Can tell you one thing, though, straight up. I know LOTS more about him/her than he/she knows about me!! :D
I never been on your site before..and I think this post was a great introduction to your world:) My opinion is that she/he went to the TV because she/he wanted to show what they showed. So probably she/he is waiting for comments and questions.
Saw a really sad show a while back about a guy who went through the surgery and then changed his mind. Dickless, and brainless.
I think that's why I have almost completely stopped watching TV.
Nah Myron, they don't remove the dick they just filet it and turn back in on itself.
Just as bad in my opinion.
Not being quick-witted like the rest of your community, I had to think about this overnight. In college, there was an international student that was in the process of being from boy to girl, and apparently his parents overseas weren't told of this. He had the most glorious hands and nails, but they were big, but not at all knobby. Laundry in college was co-ed, and he showed us girls how to better care for bras and keep them in nice shapes longer - which really worked. I'm not sure if he was wearing bras at the time, but he was flat. He walked gracefully, too.
He was Iranian, and this was during the takeover of the Embassy in Teheran, so he wasn't popular, and the Iranian boys were lukewarm about him, so he was lonely and I felt the kind of foreboding he would face for probably the rest of his natural life. Also, having been an international student, how the hell was he going to get out of the US or into anywhere else with a 'boy' passport if he wanted to? I suppose the Univ involved in the process would have vouched for him?
Me, I'd hide behind Myron. You could ask your Dad; he's a wealth of wisdom and a man of finesse AND action!
Oh my god oh my god oh my god. This didn't happen to be a flight attendant, did it?
I saw another documentary person who had his weiner cut off so he could be a girl, on an airplane. The weird thing though, was that he still looked like a dude and he wasn't wearing a skirt or anything. But I am absolutely sure that unless he had an identical twin who wanted to stay a guy, it was the same person.
Not to put too much weight on the matter, but can the said appendage be donated to, say, a guy who lost one to, maybe a viscous dog, or somethin'???
Meg, a guy who loses his schlong to a viscous dog doesn't know how to properly care for said schlong and doesn't deserve to have one.
And I just remembered last week's Grey's Anatomy. There was a guy undergoing "sex re-assignment" who checked in to the hospital for the BIG operation and they discovered the hormones he had been taking to give him girl boobs had also given him breast cancer. As Willie Nelson once said "life's a bitch. And then you die."
One of the nicest folks on one of my discussion groups is a M to F post-op. Genuinely a strong and caring person. Probably was a decent looking man, but absolutely butt-ugly as a woman. Somewhere around late 40's to 50 years of age. His partner is a lesbian.
I gave up trying to figure that out years ago.
Regards,
Rabbit.
You know, between that, and people who get off on peeing on one another, I really don't understand the human race. Did you hear about the case of the guy who was arrested for having sex with a dead deer on the side of the road? Huh? yep, sex with road kill. His lawyer tried to argue that it wasn't really bestiality because the beast was dead already. Whatever happened to going somewhere private and tossing off?
Rabbit. you certainly know some 'interesting' folks!
Fathairybatard, that is one of the most disgusting perversions I've ever heard! And I used to work with Sex Offenders for a living!!!
Meg, that is trult sad about the int'l student. Did he stay or was he forced to go back to Iran and get executed?
hollyb - Wow, the shoes - didn't even think to look down - was transfixed on that nose and eerie face that looked wrong in makeup.
myron - well, we're making a lot of assumptions about the efficacy of his dick pre-op -- it may not have been perfectly good
janean - that is hilarious - best thing you can do is move forward and be friendly, I suppose. Why you'd want to do that in a smallish community blows my mind - that's a transition best done under cover of the anonymity of a sprawling metropolis.
zsolt - What an astute observation. I rather assume people let those shows film them so the production will pay for their surgery, but I suppose there is an attention-seeking element to it, too.
bottlejobblonde - you are better off without television. Sadly, I'm over 40 and have no life, so now that i have DVR I've hooked up to the tv crackpipe and for better or for worse, I'm going to hold it and caress it in my kung-fu grip
fathairybastard - wow - that is sad. It's tragic. Some people will never be happy,no matter what.
hammer - ok , that made even ME cringe. eek.
meg - wow - so that guy must have had LOADS of conflicts, and that was early days in surgical re-sexing. Wow. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
zelda - no, he wasn't a flight attendant. Golly, it's all disturbing, isn't it?
meg - I don't know why your suggestion amuses AND disturbs me
myron - wow - that sounds like a good episode - nothing's quite as delicious as a heapin' helpin' of irony. Well, someone else's irony, anyway.
rabbit - that sounds like a M to F I have occasion to know through my work. She's an incredibly sweet-natured and lovely person, generous and kind. I hate to think of the deep well of anguish someone had to go through to make them feel they had to change themselves surgically, but when someone does and just lives a low-key and even a frumpy sort of life, it seems more genuine to me than a flamboyant splashing-out with a steam-rolling of "look-at-me." And yes, she's a homely woman.
fathairybastard - People are total weirdos. Yeah, I heard that deer story. Again, if the guy was doing it where he could be caught, I'd seriously think he wanted to be caught doing it. EW. Lock that rascal up, I say.
hollyb - good thing I wasn't drinking when I read that last line of yours, or I would have sprayed!
Well, that donation idea was a bad idea; I was just thinking it must be traumatic for you fellas to loose it, and if there is a spare part... You know, like arms, legs... Maybe not... Sorry.
Re. the Iranian boy, I graduated before he left; on the other hand, he was in the English Language programme for an awfully long time.
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