A Common Pornography: A Memoir

Homemade Clothes

One day I wore an especially effeminate shirt that Mom had made for me. Dad saw it and freaked out. It didn’t help that I had recently pierced both my ears (by myself, using the potato method[1]) and constantly ratted my bangs too. “Why don’t you just go ahead and turn him into a girl?” Dad said. Some of my guy friends I hung out with were worse. A couple of them actually did wear skirts.

At the time, I was really into paisley. Mom made me dress jackets that looked like they came from Prince’s wardrobe if he were on the show Miami Vice. Some of my friends even asked me if she could make jackets for them. It was like I had my own personal designer. (Red Carpet Reporter: Who are you wearing? Me: This is from the Mom collection.) I loved Mom for that.

One time my friend John, who was fairly normal looking compared to the rest of our friends, was over at our house. When he left, Dad shook his head sadly and said something about John wearing mascara. But John didn’t wear mascara. He just had pretty eyes.