Grayson Perry irks me

[everythingisbetterafteranap]

Not sure if I'm going to articulate this well, so bear with me.

I was reading a Guardian article on a therapist who is married to the artist Grayson Perry. Reasonably interesting article with a focus on self awareness as a parent.

But it got me thinking again on why so many bright, intelligent women so readily accept men dressing up as women in such a garish pantoesque way. Where is the feminist critique of this?

Grayson Perry has his alter ego 'Claire' who looks like the silliest version of female you could find. Why is this acceptable and not challenged? Would Grayson Perry be lauded for having a black alter ego with big lips and exaggerated gestures? There is even an annual 'let's dress Claire' competition at St Martins art college. Why aren't the students there questioning this?

What is this really all about? It doesn't feel female empowering to me.

How do you distinguish acceptable cross dressers from non acceptable?

I don't, and I don't think it can or should be policed. My view is that fetishes don't belong in the workplace. GP has openly talked about his fetish, so when he is in a studio as Claire, the other guests might feel that they are unwillingly taking part in his fetish.

I love Grayson Perry. He absolutely never calls himself a woman. He speaks and writes about toxic masculinity. I am quite fond of Claire. Watching a programme on tv about Liberty of London, and the first shot was of Grayson's back dressed as Claire and I knew it was him by the clothes he was wearing. I follow him on Twitter so I can see the beautful pieces he is working on. I absolutely do not think he is part of the TRA, or would agree with any of their arguments.

Honestly, I'm fascinated by how much people will hypothesise arty and liberal motives for Perry when he has quite clearly explained over and over it is sexual.

Me too Trousering. I don't know anything about Grayson Perry but I think Dan Davies explores in his book on Jimmy Savile, albeit not in any depth, the role that his bizarre appearance had in the almost hypnotic hold that he had over people. He began experimenting with this in Leeds in the 50s when he had half his hair dyed white and half black. In his book, Davies highlights that Savile carried out his activities in plain sight (the title of the book) almost telling people openly what he was doing but that people did not believe him. In fact, some people almost handed their children to him.

I am not in any way saying Perry is like Savile but that some people like to play with the strange effects that their appearance can have on other people for the benefits of their own personal inner world. Someone once said that we take other people into the dark caves of our own inner world in order to interact with them as we wish. The way that people think they can see into the souls of other people (and attribute to them what they would wish to see there) even when that person is quite open about their own inner cave is very disturbing.

www.google.com/search?q=transvestic+fetishism&oq=transvestic+fetishism+&aqs=chrome..69i57.18254j1j7&client=ms-android-sonymobile&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Reaching? Yeah mate, I just make this stuff up. Before any one starts reporting me Perry self ids as this.

Cross dressing isn’t sexual conduct nor harassment, that’s really reaching.

Cross dressing is basically getting the people that you meet and interact with, to become part of your sexual fantasy.

Cross-dressing is completely different to blacking up.

Clothes are man-made items which we have assigned culture and gender onto. Nobody is born wearing clothes, you can take them off and change them at any time and any labels assigned to the clothes (such as which gender or culture can or can’t wear them) have been assigned by society, they’re not inherent to the clothes. Moreover those labels may change over time, such as in the case of pink which in the UK used to be a colour for baby boys but is now seen as for girls. Those labels may also differ between cultures, for example a pink lungi and a pink sarong might look very similar, but in the UK sarongs are designed for women whilst in South India lungis are designed for men. There are many cultures where men wear garments which are similar to dresses or skirts both now and historically. Everybody experiments with different clothes, it’s just most people do so within the imposed restrictions as to whether clothes are in the men’s or women’s sections. Greyson Perry is an example of someone who experiments through wearing clothes outside of those restrictions.

Skin colour is completely different. You are born with it, you cannot change it or remove it. It’s not something we naturally experiment with,

You are born with it, you cannot change it or remove it. It’s not something we naturally experiment with

Fake tanning and skin bleaching doesn't exist then? Ok. right.

Cross dressing is basically getting the people that you meet and interact with, to become part of your sexual fantasy.

I disagree. Clothes are just clothes and I don’t care as long as someone’s bits are covered up what thrill they get from their clothes. I wish the phrase cross dressing wasn’t a thing personally. Feminine clothes aren’t owned by womankind

That's really helpful MYnewbeartoto. I didn't know that about people being born without clothes. I think I knew that babies had skin but it's really amazing the things science can tell us these days.

My dad is a cross dresser and he definitely involved me in his fetish in a sexual way. It was very damaging for me to hear over and over again ‘he’s not doing it for sexual reasons’ from my family and professionals. I was made to feel like I was the unreasonable one.

Cross-dressing is completely different to blacking up.

Is it? I agree that 'Clothes are man-made items which we have assigned culture and gender onto', but this isn't just about clothes, is it? We're not talking about David Bowie or Kurt Cobain wearing a dress, we're talking about someone having an actual alter-ego called 'Claire'. This is not simply cross-dressing, since the parodying of women is implied by the name - as well as the ridiculous make-up.

If he's not parodying women, why not just call himself Grayson Perry while wearing a dress, or call his alter ego something like Fred?

I disagree. Clothes are just clothes and I don’t care as long as someone’s bits are covered up what thrill they get from their clothes. I wish the phrase cross dressing wasn’t a thing personally. Feminine clothes aren’t owned by womankind

I agree that everyone can wear what they want, I don't care.

But it is a well known fact that alot of men who are wearing 'women's' clothes are doing so because they have AGP and get aroused when doing so.

some people like to play with the strange effects that their appearance can have on other people for the benefits of their own personal inner world

Surely this is true of the way that many people present themselves though - punks, goths, skinheads, mods, the low slung way some young men wear jeans... These are all saying something to the world about the wearer.

Don't most of us do this in some way? I would guess that very few of us wear clothes for a totally practical purpose ie keeping us warm. Most of us select clothes to convey a message whether that be smart, asset authority, convey membership of an organisation, attract attention to ourselves.

Do you judge women wearing very revealing clothes? Are they also forcing you to participate in some sort of fantasy too?

Clothes are just clothes and I don’t care as long as someone’s bits are covered up what thrill they get from their clothes*

I agree. I appreciate that on here the idea that "clothes are just clothes" will not be accepted by all posters because of arguments about societal conditioning. Unfortunately those arguments to my mind often veer into no more than criticism of choices a poster personally doesn't like.

I follow Phillipa on twitter - and their cat @kevinkittycat.

She has made some great tv programmes and her book How to Stay Sane is a short and helpful read. I think she not a little to do with his thoughtfulness and informed opinion on gender politics and art.

How many female to male cross dressers are there? It seems to me its male to female. Strange

Don't most of us do this in some way? I would guess that very few of us wear clothes for a totally practical purpose ie keeping us warm. Most of us select clothes to convey a message whether that be smart, asset authority, convey membership of an organisation, attract attention to ourselves

I definitely choose my clothes for the second reason.

I am really sorry to hear that Geraldine.

Most of us select clothes to convey a message whether that be smart, asset authority, convey membership of an organisation, attract attention to ourselves.

Do your clothes turn you on enough to give you an orgasm?

How many female to male cross dressers are there?
How do you define cross dressing?

Most women wear jeans and t shirts - is that cross dressing?

What is that equivalent for men?

If a man simply wore a dress, so no make up etc would you view that as cross dressing?

How do you distinguish acceptable cross dressers from non acceptable?

My view, LassOfFyvie, is that men who put on a dress simply because it's what they like to wear are acceptable. Men who put on a dress and insist that by doing so they have actually become women are not. Men who cross dress for a fetish and insist that others participate in their fetish are also unacceptable. Men who cross-dress in order to mock and parody women and make them uncomfortable are unacceptable.

I can expand further on this if you're interested.

Do your clothes turn you on enough to give you an orgasm?

Well, I've never seen GP (or any other cross dresser to be fair) having an orgasm in public.

Do other people wear clothing to turn them on and then express that in private? I reckon they do

Going back to Philippa Perry, she recently did a BBC4 doco on the history of the agony aunt. It's here:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0555vjj

The first third of it has some interesting comments from her on transvestism.

Perry isnt cross dressing as a social or sartorial commentary.

He's doing it because it gives him a boner. He says it's tied up with humiliation and BDSM. He is perfectly open about it.

Inhabiting a 'woman' is arousing to him, because of his early exposure to explicit porn.

I like that he talks about it and it is open about it. But it is exactly the same as the AGP men who lie about it and try and access women's changing rooms.

The fact that he doesn't do that is positive.

I do, of course, have an issue with the fetish itself. Whilst completely understanding that it's not Perry's fault for having it.

The issue is why do men acquire a fetish that means they get aroused over the humiliation of women?

When women say men should be able to wear anything they like, it's in the context of clothing, not in the context of getting aroused by presenting as a woman.

This isn't complicated.

Most women wear jeans and t shirts - is that cross dressing? nope. What id assume a female crossdresser would be wearing is stuff bought in "men's section" shops. I dont think I have ever seen it!