By Miss Cookie LaWhore
1. Wear anything. Wear a Budweiser bathing suit, discarded underwear cut into a halter top, or sheer gowns without panties. To be glamourous, you have to risk looking hideous. Others will think you’re gorgeous if they see you in something they could never imagine wearing themselves. Conviction assures success.
2. Don’t tuck. If someone snears at your lumpy hootchie, clarify your intentions with any one of the following reasons: The most obvious, a good package is never an embarrassment. You are doing the world far greater good in dismantling the gender binary than embracing it. No man should have to spend a night unable to pee, or fuck, at will. You are part of an ever-growing movement of transgressive queens proud of their dicks, from Jane to Vaginal Cream Davis, Keith Cole, Heklina, and the ever-popular me.
3. If you really must wear tits, use any number of roundish objects. Old nylons filled with rice. NERF balls cut in half (football or softball, depending on your preference for shape). With the right colour combination, they are particularly hot as exposed cleavage. My current favourite is trail mix. It’s great to have a snack on hand when you’re hungry. To avoid confusion, be sure to eat equal amounts from each breast. Important note: plastic baggies against your skin will make you sweat.
4. Do not shave, trim or wax your body hair. “Fuzzy drag” is the new black.
5. Buy black eyeliner, the brightest lipstick you can find, and red eyeshadow. In a real money-tight pinch, just use eyeliner for everything. Ask a friend to help. Eat a pot cookie before beginning. Half an hour later, note how he applies layer after layer, unable to make your face symmetrical. Coat everything with glitter to distract from the mistakes. Name the look “Arthouse Glam.”
6. Don’t be afraid to glue small pompoms to your face to achieve that extra something.
7. a) For variety, wear your wig backwards, sideways, or, to match your asymmetrical look, tilted. Shave your head hair to spell your best friend’s name. Or your pet’s name. Or a common expletive used during sex. When the music on the dance floor gets really good, pull your wig off and shake it like a cheerleader.
b) Wrap around your genitals a faux-hair scrunchy to match your wig. Create private moments to show people your designer merkin. Discreetly show as many people as possible.
8. When men you don’t like touch you- inappropriately–and they will—accidentally swing your purse into their balls. When men you do like refuse to touch you inappropriately, accidentally swing your ass against their balls.
9. Be a bigger, bolder version of yourself. Spend six years saying all the things you fear to admit in polite company. If you hurt someone’s feelings, claim your heels are a stage. Practise this phrase: Your feelings interfere with my creative licence. In the seventh year, sober up.
10. Remind all you meet that everyday clothes are drag too.
11. If you have to wear the same outfit a second time, it must be in a different city, or more than a year later, or for the BC Association of Chartered Accountants Christmas party. You can overlook this rule if you’ve “re-fabbed” the material with scissors. Wear everything one size too small and take shallow breaths.
12. If you suspect someone is uncomfortable around you, be extra friendly. Offer them a seat beside you, a sip of your drink, to be their bathroom buddy. Don’t let them refuse any kindness. Kiss them goodbye on the lips when they leave, early, with a headache.
13. When straight dudes off the street threaten to kill you on the way home, walk fast and look busy. Don’t make eye contact. Step to the curb and call out the first, and best, three letters of the alphabet: C-A-B.
14. When the cabbie invites you to blow him for free, consider the distance and cost of your journey. Weigh that against his looks and demeanour. Try not to tent your skirt until the deal is struck. Agree, on the condition that he turn off the meter.
15. Next day at your bank or library or office job, wear dark sunglasses as much as possible to hide the red eyeshadow that stained your lids.
16. Say goodbye to your sex life, unless, of course, you take a lot of cabs.
Miss Cookie LaWhore is Michael V. Smith, the only Canadian novelist to perform stand-up and improv naked drag. Together they produced the public sex zine, Cruising, and such award-winning indie film hits as Girl on Girl: a documentary and The Integration Dance. Smith has been named both one of Vancouver’s most dangerous people (Loop Magazine) and one of Vancouver Magazine’s 25 most influential queers. Samples of Cookie’s confessional sex column, “Blush,” can be found at: www.misscookie.com