As a femme queer, I have so been long resigned to being visually misread that I’ve reached the point of just not caring and doing whatever I want, since people usually just begin and end with my hair anyway. What those lipsticks give me is something incredibly rare: power over the way other people see me. I actually had a teenage girl timidly touch me on the shoulder at a museum exhibit to compliment me on it, staring at my mouth like she’d simply never conceived of the idea before and found something inspiring about it. I leave fantastical, cosmic lip marks on coffee cups and apples. Women are usually pleasantly baffled by it men are repelled. With the warm tones in my face neutralized by how dark and cold they are, I look… different. I’ve also started wearing purple lipstick-true, dark, royal purple, not berry or mauve-but they both get the kind of attention I want. I’ve started wearing blue lipstick recently. Edited by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton
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