Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

AnarcheAmor wrote

There's not much I can say other than that. There's not a lot of amab kings and there doesn't seem to be an explanation as to why but I can imagine that it can reveal a good bit about the answers to your question. Maybe cismen find masculine performance less fulfilling to engage with?

3

fortmis OP wrote

And you're saying that if more cismen performed as drag kings, then it would be a more popular performance type... because of the leverage that cismen have? sorry I'm not understanding exactly.

3

AnarcheAmor wrote

There's not much to understand there. I'm basically saying that cismen don't do a lot of drag king work and the reasons why could reveal something about why drag queens are more popular.

3

fortmis OP wrote

probably for the same reason not a lot of afab people do drag queen work... the performance is in the exaggerated impersonation of a gender that you don't regularly perform as in your day to day. I really don't see how cismen not doing drag king work reveals anything here.

3

AnarcheAmor wrote

There are tons of afab queens, actually, to the point that their presence and number in the drag community is a point of some controversy. The ability to exaggerate their feminity in a myriad of ways that they don't get to on a regular basis is part of the reason why queening attracts women. So the lack of amab kings is just... odd... Given that cismen have as much reason to do king work as much as ciswomen do for queen work. So far my thoughts on the issue haven't stopped connecting to the other stuff you've mentioned so far but I've also stumbled on the the possibility that maybe cismen see their masculinity differently than ciswomen see their femininity. If ciswomen feel so much freedom from doing drag femme performance then why not men for drag masc performance? Plus there seems to be a difference between drag king performance vs. what's considered masculine to the general cisman public, there's a certain lack of "male (read: cisman) gaze" to drag kinging that changes how it defines masculine performance (especially since we're talking about masculinity in a space dominated by queer folk).

3

fortmis OP wrote

ok NOW you're getting at something interesting here. I like the points you make. Going to chew on them for a bit.

3