Lettin' it all hang out...

What is it that makes people confident? No, that's not a Carrie style query for her latest column but a very genuine question. Yesterday I waffled about diversity and in trawling the internet I've managed to find some pretty unique peeps. Without sounding like a tranny chaser, I seriously lurve Wanda Wisdom's podcast series and in her Monday show on Lucky Bitch Radio she spoke about gay people trading stories and making their voices heard. For those who don't know Wanda, she's a 32 year old sober drag queen from Minnesota who is seriously hilarious but very much her own special creation. She even dressed up in a giant pink heart to propose to bigotted American politician Michele Bachman. Now, to me that says confidence. Maybe it's the drag that gives Wanda confidence (I don't think it is Wandita hunnie) or maybe it's that she's overcome her worst trials and can now stand up as her own person free of worries about what others think.

From an early age, I've always wanted to be pretty. Yes I know how gay that sounds and yes I am incredibly vain but I wanted to be pretty. Why? Well, in my early years it was because I thought pretty people were better people. In my teenage years it was because pretty people get laid and in my early twenties, it's because I think pretty people tend to have more confidence. I hate mirrors and the reason is that in one, you can look like Zsa Zsa at her best and in another you can look like a strange hybrid of Vanessa Feltz and the Elephant Man's ugly twin. Some mirrors show every large pore and red patch, others give you that gorgeous soft focus that can only ever make you look like Angie Lansbury in "Murder, She Wrote". I'm lucky to own two such mirrors and so I can sit before them and create something truly gorgeous. I'm not being a twinky bitch here but in those mirrors, I'd lube myself up. They're that good. But then I wander down the street feeling pabulous and I catch sight of myself in a car window.

MAGNIFICATION!! And that equals eww. So then I start pulling my hair down over my eyes and I start looking at the floor instead of holding my head up high and being seen for what I am and not the photoshop beauty I want to be. Or used to want to be. For today gentle readers, I broke through the cliche of the whole "I am what I am" ballad and actually accepted myself as me. And no I'm not talking about accepting myself as a guy who dances at the end of the ballroom, I'm talking about accepting myself for the way I look. Now, I get messages on Faceparty/Facebook/Gaydar/Gay Jews from people telling me I'm cute. It makes me smile and in a way, it's always been a crutch for my confidence in that when I'm feeling low I can go into a room of anonymous horny chappies and be smothered with compliments. But that's a false confidence and I get the feeling it's the same sort of confidence our celebrities get when they see themselves on the front cover of Hello! or OK.

A few days ago in the Dirty Mail, they printed pics of celebs without makeup. The gorgeous Goldie Hawn didn't look quite as gorgeous. She didn't have blinding white teeth or flawless porcelain skin and she was a bit thicker round the middle, her hair was untidy and she looked tired. So how comes just a few weeks ago she was featured in the GayTimes looking absolutely stunning as if she was a resident of an oyster shell? The answer lies in Photoshop but that doesn't mean that the real Goldie Hawn is a dog. It means that the real Goldie Hawn is a real person who has bad days and good days and speaking for myself, I find Goldie Hawn much more endearing knowing that she has flaws. All this talk of size 0 surely backs my theory up that the media provides impossible role models and so when we look in the mirror, if we don't see that role model look staring back at us we lose confidence. We turn to buying celeb style fashions from Primark, men start plastering foundation on, we buy straighteners and crimpers and skinny jeans and why? To look like someone created by a nerd at a computer. I have a friend who loves anime and is currently beating himself up because he doesn't look like the muscular yet boyish hunks he's found on Xtube.

He's no different to the young girls and boys starving themselves to get that 24 inch waist or those middle aged women having glycolic acid painted on their faces to burn away wrinkles and remove all traces of emotion from their worn visage. I've had a bit of an epiphany and I can honestly say that I no longer buy into the idea that celebrities set the standard for how we should look, nor have I ever accepted that so called Roman beauty is something we should aim for. In the gay community there's alot of pressure to fit into a box. If you're a bear you can revel in being overweight and hairy and whats more you'll be celebrated if you let those flab rolls bust out through your leather straps. If you're a twink, you can look extremely feminine and all of 16 and you're in demand by porn studios everywhere. If you're a drag queen, you slap on the greasepaint and a ten foot wig and you'll be the star of every night club you enter. Yet a twink seems to judge a bear by his standards as if to say that being a twink is the only acceptable look for a gay guy much in the same way Vicky Beckham seems to say that being slim with a trout-pout and a dodgy bob is the only acceptable way for young women to look. The amount of guys on Gaydar looking for Johnny Depp is phenominal yet there's only one Johnny Depp and to expect all other guys in the community to match Johnny's physique is not only unrealistic but damn unfair.

Not that I haven't done it and let's be honest, we all have our types. We all find something different attractive and I'm not saying we should all adopt a Chairman Mao one-way image. I'm just saying stop the bitchiness, stop the forcing of unattainable photoshop beauty onto people who are gullible enough to deprive themselves of what they really want to get laid. So from now on, if I have a couple of spots then hey - tough shit. I'm nearly 21, I have naturally oily skin and occassionally I'll get a pimple. If my hair is dodgy - fuck it. I don't control the elements and the wind and rain will spoil my do every now and then. But come acne or split ends, I'm the same guy who can hold a good conversation, give you a giggle and buy you a G and T. I think it's about time society took a stand against the cruel and unreasonable expectations our media peddle by simply not trying to squeeze into a journalist-made mould they can't even get into with a tub of Crisco. You are what you are, I am what I am; so let's let it all hang out, warts and all. Keep it glam gals. xXx