Sounds like you landed on my space. I’ve been called all woman, even superwoman and b-tch, but no one has ever called me feminine.

People call my Aunt feminine all the time. The child of French immigrants, there is nothing frail about my Aunt. Not one strand of her hair would dare escape its pose, her nails were afraid to break, even her farts froze were terrified of escape. Unlike you, I got stuck with a highly visual brain. In my mind’s eye, she’s always appeared as a wispy image, wrapped in cotton candy, in her pink champagne Cadillac, with fluffy blonde hair, pink fingernails, bright blue eyes and flawless white skin punctuated with pink cheeks and rosy pink lips. I’ve tried, but my mind will not stop seeing her as a cartoon character.

In truth, my Aunt is a formidable presence who wields femininity like a weapon. I never saw tears well up on her eyes, let alone saw her cry. I haven’t been a kid in 50 years, but I still say “Aunt” (not ant) and spell it with a capital “A” because she demanded it. Thanks to my Aunt, feminine wiles have the opposite effect on me. Play those wiles on me and I figure you are a tough as nails, hard-ass, ice queen Even in her 90s, my Aunt still looks like cotton candy to me.

If my Aunt was feminine, what they heck was my hard-working, career-oriented, single mother? As a kid, I used to wonder why my Aunt got to be a woman and my Mother was deprived of it. I don ‘t wonder anymore.

My uncle made my Aunt’s femininity possible. Next to my Aunt, my nerdy and emotional uncle looked like a strong man. They were different people without each other. I adored my uncle when we were alone and disliked him intensely when my Aunt was around. Conversely, I adored my Aunt when we were alone and disliked her intensely when my uncle was around.

Like vampires, they sucked femininity and masculinity out of each other. I preferred both of them whole.