Lipstick

/looks at picture
Wow... red isn't really my shade, is it? It looks a little weird toward the edges. Maybe I should've found a way to make the borders of my lips more defined. What if I tried purple instead? Or a darker red?

Whatever, it doesn't really matter. This was just a fun, social experiment I did for a SOC 100 assignment. The assignment was to challenge a social norm, expected behaviors or cues within society. Some examples of challenging a social norm given in class included facing the back wall in an elevator instead of the door, sitting next to people when you're on an empty bus, or dressing too formally/informally for the setting. While those ideas sound super fun, I have a deeper interest in challenging gender-social norms, so I came up with the idea to wear lipstick. To isolate this male-deviant behavior, I wore it with my regular male-appropriate clothing...just to clarify that I wasn't trying to observe the effects of changing my gender orientation or anything.

Thank you to Teresa for letting me borrow the lipstick, who tried so hard to find me the right shade. Also, thanks to Vivian for helping me apply the lipstick. I tried several times on my own, but I just got clown-ier and clown-ier with each attempt.

Various Reactions

• "What's going on? That's not your shade."
• (politely) "Why are your lips so red?" "Lipstick." (still politely) "....Why?"
• "What's wrong with your lips?"
• *friends keep trying to take a picture of me*
• "What the fuck?"
• (noticing my lips while walking away to class) "OMG!? LIPSTICK!?"
• "Henry, I love you." --told me to by my friend named Henry. Henrys get each other. 
• *many friends keep trying to take a picture of me*
• One of my friends didn't say a thing but while we're in the office together for an hour, I catch her keep staring at me secretly <----my favorite reaction.