Andrej-yny

I’ve just read about the fashion model Andrej Pejic, a fascinating story of glamorous androgyny.  Pejic’s particularly notable claim to fame is now having been ranked number ninety-eight on FHM’s list of the 100 Sexist Women in the World, in spite of being a man.  I already commented on last month’s Maxim Hot 100 list, and called attention to the masculine features of their number one pick.  But in that case, I used the observation to make fun of meatheads and their repressed homosexuality.  The case of Andrej Pejic and FHM, however, speaks to something deeper.  After all, since Pejic is identifiably male, the readers who voted him in had to be conscious of the impulses driving their decision.  Either significant numbers of FHM readers believe that the shape of a model’s genitalia does not affect the attractiveness of his or her feminine features, or they voted Pejic in as a joke of some sort, or else a bunch of frat boys genuinely didn’t know the gender of the person they were looking at and have spent the entire time since the release of the magazine trembling in horror and confusion.

Superimposed Image

I’m feeling drawn towards slightly superficial topics tonight. For someone who strives to be highly cerebral and to actually eschew superficiality, I have a strange fascination with fashion and beauty. I can justify some of that as philosophically grounded, because I think aesthetics is a truly intriguing subject on inquiry. But part of it has to do with the fact that I met a girl some years ago who was highly interested in fashion, mostly as an extension of her interest in art, and she single-handedly robbed me of much of my derision. Now it’s just another part of culture that I take pleasure in analyzing and picking apart.