(Diriye Osman by Boris Mitkov)
FEMININITY IN MEN IS A FORM OF POWER
BY DIRIYE OSMAN
When I first told my friends that I would be wearing a pearl-studded mock-Elizabethan gown for the cover of my book, “Fairytales For Lost Children”, they were doubtful. In the past I had flirted with androgyny by wearing women’s jewellery and a dash of perfume but I had never worn a dress. To my friends, though the notion of a man wearing a dress meant having an extra pair of balls, it seemed essentially perverse. But to me the idea made perfect sense. My book was about gay Somalis exploring their sexual identities and gender roles, so why not riff on these motifs by donning a jewel-encrusted queen’s dress?
I liked the flamboyant cheekiness of the concept, but when I went to the costumier for my first fitting that sense of cheekiness gave way to something more dynamic and surprising. As the costumier strapped me into the corset I didn’t feel constricted. Instead, I felt – and looked – ice-cool, sensual, striking, powerful, virile.
Read More HERE.
