Sylph Wrote:Don't forget all the Greeks, Romans and Indians and Egyptians who often sought out Androgyny. As it is also a state of mind as well.
Even some of the costumes we wear, to some foreigners, could technically be "Androgynous".
seeking out to be/look androgynous and being androgynous are two different things.
you can dye a zebra's fur black but it's still a zebra, not a horse. likewise, a man who does not look androgynous
without using some external means,
still does not look androgynous no matter what he applied on himself in terms of make-up, clothing, jewelry, etc.
the latter is a practice to cultivate gender ambiguity, termed correctly, not androgyny itself. a black is a black, and nothing else.
costumes are purely a cultural thing (or a decorative) and it has nothing to do with androgyny.
during those ancient times, in the Roman empire, in Greece, in Egypt, etc there were men who looked androgynous (without having to do anything to make it happen) just like there are such men today. some guys back then, as now, looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger (nothing wrong with that), others like David Chiang. there existed these varieties all throughout history. and back then, men who looked androgynous did not necessarily advocate gender ambiguity, 'feminine' expression, or hold positions where such qualities were upheld (certain priestly positions were an example).
this has nothing to do with extracorporeal additives, clothes/jewelry/etc that one may don and -- voilà! -- become androgynous.
you can't become androgynous, you either are or you are not. like you either have green eyes or you don't. sure, you can wear contact lenses to make your eyes appear green, but that is fake, and your eyes are still not green.
we already have correct definitions for men who e.g. dress up in female clothing -- it is called 'cross-dressing', or 'transvestism'. now, some androgynous men may be doing something like that (and if they do, it is separate from their androgyny), but the fact that they are androgynous does not imply that they do. nor does it mean that a man who does cross-dress, actually looks androgynous. see what i mean? there is a huge gaping difference between these things, and to confuse it with androgyny is misguided.
a guy who dresses in female clothing is more correctly called a 'transvestite', than 'androgynous'. a guy who wears make-up is more correctly said to be 'in drag' than 'androgynous'. there is absolutely no need for inference to androgyny in such cases, because androgyny exists independently of all these practices.
also, i do not agree that androgyny exists in a state of mind. it is something that applies to external appearance exclusively.