After reading 700,000 of these heartwarming stories of gumption and daring in the face of heartless social oppression, one starts to feel sympathy for tryannical majorities. They can't get a break.

There's nothing precious about this little weasel but that he wants to rub other people's noses in it. There are 400+ other kids in the class too, and each of them has "spent years defining and exploring [his] sexuality." Why should they let the fuckwit ruin things for them?

I'm not a prom night kind of guy: Being profoundly antisocial and raised in a hippified 70's atmosphere, I didn't ever want to go. But for most people it's a special evening wherein certain concessions to nature are made, and where a lot of the stupidities of childhood come to an end. It's a big deal, and it's big SOCIAL deal, and it's about how you fit in. Especially in Gary, we gotta figure that these kids aren't going to have a lot of elegant evenings of dining and dancing where such formality is observed.

If this guy is such a disruptively distinct individual, HE SHOULDN'T GO. It ain't no thang.

In the real world, men sometimes wear ladies' clothing, and I don't think exposure to that is bad or wrote. In fact, if you see that somebody's just a person under the dress, maybe it's a good thing.

I was going to disagree with Crid, because this sounds more like a "parents wanting to create a perfect memory they didn't have" sort of thing. When I was in high school, I would have just gotten a good laugh out from the whole situation.

But damn! That bitch is ugly!

The last time I saw a cross-dressing guy, I remember wondering why he thought buttercup yellow was his color.

I don't understand people getting indignant about this.

So, a guy wants to wear a dress to the prom. Who gives a frock?

I agree with Patrick. Girlfriend just needs to lose a few pounds. That fuschia totally works against the chocolate skin tone. And I love the hand on the hip.

Oh, please. I bet I'm a lot closer to my high school prom than most of you and I know I didn't give a rats ass about anything but how I looked. I think crid underestimates the narcissim of teenagers. As far as a perfect memory, I'm sure a dude in a dress is a much more entertaining memory than getting felt up by a clumsy seventeen year old. Anybody whose best years were the ones in high school needs to be shot anyway so their genes don't further pollute the sludge which is our gene pool.

> Anybody whose best years were the ones
> in high school needs to be shot anyway

Xtina, you're a Sister.

Yes, you are!

This is a men's lib issue. Men aren't liberated until it is acceptable for a man to wear a pretty dress if he wants to. Not just once for a dare, but as an ordinary everyday thing. I don't want to, personally, but I'm not brave enough to either.

Who objects to it? Other men, mostly. Why? I have no idea.

> Men aren't liberated until it is acceptable
> for a man to wear a pretty dress

Norman, Norman, Norman. This doesn't strike a blow for masculine expression... It diminishes the meaning of "liberty."

'It diminishes the meaning of "liberty."'

Does it diminish the meaning of liberty -- or broaden it?

PS: Comments on this blog have sent me running to the dictionary quite often lately!

"In the real world, men sometimes wear ladies' clothing"

Yeah! Like Klinger on M*A*S*H.

> Does it diminish the meaning of
> liberty -- or broaden it?

It TRIVIALIZES it. "Men aren't liberated until it is acceptable for a man to wear a pretty dress..." Given what oppression really means to people in Asia, Africa and South America, cross-dressing simply doesn't count. If that's what liberty is about, then liberty's not something that demands my involvement.

My sister made a living caring for the mentally retarded. Talking to guests at a party, she told of caring for one "client" who had an debilitating fear of lawn mowers, and how the frequent lawn trimmings of an Indiana summer brought chaos to his household, with crying jags and fits of terror in the corner room.

A dimestore Skinnerian perked up. "Ah, this one's easy. Does the guy like ice cream? Great! So when you know it's mowing day, you mention just after breakfast how there'll be ice cream later in the morning. And then when Uncle Lew's rolling the mower out of the garage, you set out the bowls and spoons. And then when he tugs the rope and spins up the ol' Briggs and Stratton, you start scooping the sweet stuff."

My sister's response was instantaneous: "This will teach the guy to hate ice cream!"

Norman's deployment of freedom's metaphors is grandiose. A mechanically contrary approach to matters is not helpful.

See also the current discussion on Seipp's blog about Cindy Sheehan, and what Dowd called the 'absolute moral authority of grieving mothers.' Simplistic thinking like that will always embarrass you later. All sane people who once expressed admiration for Sheehan now twitch with anxiety whenever she leaves the house.

Crid, you're really beginning to sound like my Aunt Margeret: "How can you complain about anything? There are people in this world who don't have any arms or legs!"

"Freedom" means a lot more to people than "free from oppression," just as "healthy" means much more than "non-diseased." Should the fact of other people's unbearably painful lives keep us from wanting to do our daily thang without harrassment?

I also think that the "right to wear a dress" is completely trivial and laughable, especially when compared with something like the right of a girl to decide she'd rather not have her clitoris sliced off. But in this context, raising the specter of forced clitorectomy or severe mental retardation or any other extremely undesirable living condition seems like a real cheap shot, rhetorically. A child in a hospital burn unit trumps EVERYTHING.

What Lena said.

If this were Monty Python, the next scene would be Nathan Hale dropping from the gallows in a classic Armani little black dress.

> raising the specter of forced
> clitorectomy or severe mental
> retardation

These were not my examples.

> or any other extremely
> undesirable living
> condition

ANY other? The extremism is yours. You're arguing that a sense of proportion is something to be avoided. Most of the left agrees with you, and it's the reason liberalism is so deservedly impotent nowadays. A failure to acknowledge degrees is a core component of adolescent narcissism. (Again, see the young participant at Seipp's this morning.)

> "healthy" means much more than
> "non-diseased."

No. The worst of Santa Monica liberalism is the attempt to mechanically conflate health and decency. They're not the same thing. Each of us has personals enthusiams which rub our fellows the wrong way, and we can't pretend their suppression is the stuff of slavery. It's easy to imagine paradise planets of peace, comfort and fulfillment where men just don't wear skirts.

Again:

> Men aren't liberated until it is
> acceptable for a man to wear a
> pretty dress

It's silly, and it diminishes the meaning of the words.

OK, I obviously have to qualify what men I'm talking about. Here in the 1st world (Scotland) I, as a white man, have lots of hard-won freedom. I don't dispute the dreadful state of much of the rest of the world - but I'm not talking about it either. I live in a small fishing village, where "men are men" and the fact is I don't really have the freedom to wear a dress. Women can wear trousers or a skirt: I don't have any choice. I have most other freedoms but that is not one of them. It's as clear a case of sexism as I can see.

Don't sidetrack the issue by comparing it with things that are undoubtedly much worse, but competely irrelevant. Why is this kid not able to wear a dress to prom? Who is preventing him and why? What harm does it do?

Enthusiams! Enthusiams!

Fuckit, you know what I meant.

Eric, go here:

TikibarTV.com

Watch episodes 1, 8, 9,and 10. Best thing since Python.

"You're arguing that a sense of proportion is something to be avoided."

No, I was saying that the admonition to remember "what oppression really means to people in _______ [insert your favorite oppressed society]" is rhetorically cheap, that's all. It reminds me of someone I heard on KPFK this week who described the "low" percentage of black students at UCLA as a "crisis." If everything if a fucking crisis, nothing is a crisis.

> Don't sidetrack the issue
> by comparing it with things
> that are undoubtedly much
> worse

Norman, THAT'S MY ARGUMENT TO *YOU*!

> If everything if a fucking
> crisis, nothing is a crisis.

My point EXACTLY.

> clear a case of sexism

Not every distinction people make is an -ism.

> Why is this kid not able to
> wear a dress to prom?

I dunno. Again, I'm not the one to defend prom night rituals; I loathed their boundaries so aggressively that I chose not to participate. That's the more righteous way to go... The fact that it's a public accommodation (high school dance) doesn't mean that society is compelled to accept every wrinkle in your personality. Some of us have very deep wrinkles. If you really think people are oppressing you and not being friendly, go make friends elsewhere.

This is just mouthing off, but I think prom night is sweet little evening designed to help people trade some of childhood's stupidities for some of adulthood's necessary hypocrisies. A king and queen are elected; good cheekbones are all it takes to earn coronation. Everybody in room knows, as they watch Cindy and Rick standing so tall and purdy under those crepe streamers and bunting, that the rest of life is not going to be like that. On the other hand, some guys are just figuring out that no matter how much those formal clothes itch, a lot of time in the future is going to be spent dressing for context so that other people can be made comfortable enough for transactions to be pursued. People don't dress for their own feelings; they dress to express their willingness to play ball.

Cross-dressing repudiates that expression. It selfishly presumes that those codes can be coarsely twisted for individual fulfillment. Look, I didn't even read the story until now. It only mentions the loving, supportive (intrusive?), revolutionary-spirited Mom. Where's Dad? Is this a family that can't get along with masculinity?

Props to the decoration committee.

"Cross-dressing repudiates that expression. It selfishly presumes that those codes can be coarsely twisted for individual fulfillment."

I am picturing you in a nun's habit right now, Sister Cridella. You are in HEAVY moral drag.

Your honor, move to strike as non-responsive. Counsel's arguments have been answered, and she KNOWS it.

Okay. A nun with a law degree.

Dude, you asked why a guy shouldn't wear a dress to a prom. That's the answer, that he's more concerned with his feelings than those of others. Is it wrong? Prom night is about the negotiations people make, and those negotiations have boundaries. Anything else?

Since when are you concerned with the feelings of others?

Tyrants can't get a break.

Are you having a good holiday weekend, you little tyrant? I am at work slaving away on a grant deadline. (But I should probably just shut up, because this suffering is nothing compared with the daily abuses suffered by children in Darfur.) My only source of comfort is the knowledge that other assholes across the country are pounding away on the same deadline right now.

Anybody whose best years were the ones in high school needs to be shot anyway so their genes don't further pollute the sludge which is our gene pool.

Truer words were never spoken.

This is ridiculous. Anyone who feels that the prom will be "ruined" for them because some guy decides to wear a prom dress is in need of 52.7 types of lives. Get the hell over it already.

So, the prom is some kind of rite of passage into adulthood? I doubt most of the teens will see it that way. Do adults typically go around wearing tuxedos and elegant dresses? Then what does the prom have to do with being an adult? It's a formal evening. Nothing more.

If some kid going to the prom is going to dwell on the dude in a prom dress and how much it annoys him, then quite frankly he's an idiot and deserves to be annoyed.

Perhaps proms have special meaning for you guys. We didn't have them when I was a kid or if we did I hated everyone so much I never went or have erased the memory. What I have in mind is the prom in "Grease" with Olivia Neutron Bomb and the rest of the 18-years olds with suspiciously heavy beard growth. (The males, that is.) I don't think anyone in "Grease" would have been upset by a bloke in a frock. They would have taunted him, especially if this was the first time he'd done it. But it wouldn't have spoiled things for them, not in the slightest.

I once went to a fancy dress ball as an Arab in a long hooded cloak thing which I made out of a blanket. If was a good costume - an Arab told me it was exactly right. (I'd been to North Africa so I knew what I was aiming for.) But I had to dance bent double for much of the evening to avoid tent pole embarrassment. This is one practical problem for men in frocks that is not often mentioned.

Anyone out there remember "The Naked Guy" at UC Berkeley about a decade ago? He was a real non-conformist, and refused to ever wear any clothing- to class, shopping, whatever. I never personally saw him, but thought on the news reports "so what's the big deal? It's Berkeley."

He killed himself a few days back, in jail.

I lived in Berkeley back in the Naked Guy days, and I saw him up close on Telegraph Ave. Totally hot ass. A very fuckable dude.