Do You Think Michael was Feminine?

NatureCriminal7896

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In my opinion i don't think so. i just see a flawless sweet kindhearted man. he wasn't feminine to me.
 
Why would people think that he is feminine? People was a human with a pure heart. All he wanted was love, peace and respect. I don’t call that feminine, I call that beauty. Do people think that Michael was feminine because he used make up? Bullshit as well. Make up is widely used in Hollywood amongst men and women.
 
Re: Do you think Michael was feminine?

Most men aren't delicately beautiful like Michael was, especially during the Dangerous and HIStory period, so in that sense. I was looking at a photo of him from the Stranger In Moscow shoot on my laptop one time, and my older sister looked over and said, "She's pretty". I was like, "Bruh... that's Michael."

But I don't think he was feminine in any other sense, no. Though a lot of his loveliest qualities are traits more associated with women, I don't get a feminine energy or vibe from him.
 
Oh come on, that old question? Please. I don’t think so.
 
Yes I think he was. It’s not a negative thing but I think he was quite feminine for a man.
 
Re: Do you think Michael was feminine?

What really are masculine traits in the eyes of the society? Building muscles, sleeping around with various women, not showing emotions... Those are some of the traits that a society expects from a man. Was Michael like that? No, so I guess in that sense, he was feminine and Thank God for that!
 
Re: Do you think Michael was feminine?

He had an androgynous persona yes, but I have never considered him to be any more feminine than he was masculine. In fact, he had a very masculine personality, but he was not overly macho and did not adhere to strictly masculine stereotypes so people like to label him as feminine.
 
Re: Do you think Michael was feminine?

by definition he was feminine to some extent.. That's not a bad thing! he was beautiful, and yes as a straight male I will say that..
 
Re: Do you think Michael was feminine?

Why not just make one single thread titled "Nature Criminals daily MJ question thread"?
 
Re: Do you think Michael was feminine?

What really are masculine traits in the eyes of the society? Building muscles, sleeping around with various women, not showing emotions... Those are some of the traits that a society expects from a man. Was Michael like that? No, so I guess in that sense, he was feminine and Thank God for that!

He did lift weights but not a lot because he want it a slim body. yes i agree. MJ was a gentleman. one of the reasons like him. :)
 
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Re: Do you think Michael was feminine?

He had an androgynous persona yes, but I have never considered him to be any more feminine than he was masculine. In fact, he had a very masculine personality, but he was not overly macho and did not adhere to strictly masculine stereotypes so people like to label him as feminine.

I actually see him both ways. but i really don't see him much feminine. i see his masculine side a lot. he was gentleman. one of the reasons i like him with manners and respect. :) (y)
 
Re: Do you think Michael was feminine?

Absolutely. Michael was feminine. I don't know why it's such a taboo thing. Why can't a man be feminine and carry the same amount of power and demand the same amount of respect and attention as a man who is masculine? Being feminine is in no way a bad thing and should never be frowned upon or treated as taboo, in my opinion. Femininity carries not just the equal amount of power as masculinity but also a rare and gentle beauty.
 
MJ was androgynous, not feminine.

In other words, he was partly masculine & partly feminine in his appearance/behaviour.

Also, Harrison Funk (one of his personal photographers for nearly 30 years) has clearly suggested it that.

… It wasn’t so much femininity on Michael’s part as androgyny - he was fluid around gender. Michael had no interest in assigning a gender to anybody… he didn’t overtly identify as one particular gender… “ (Harrison Funk)

MJ’s androgyny is especially apparent on his ‘You Are Not Alone’ & ‘Childhood’ music videos, where his use of make-up is excessive.

Also, during his public appearances with his then-wife Lisa Marie Presley, MJ was wearing more make-up than his wife did (which was another sign of his androgyny).

Moreover, his speaking & singing voice showed his androgyny, too.

Apart from his normal male voice, MJ on numerous occasions intentionally spoke but also sang in a high-pitched voice that sounded more like a feminine voice.

MJ intentionally wanted to have that androgynous personality in general, mainly because he wanted to create a mystery around him & to make people speculate about him all the time.
 
This is a very interesting subject matter for a thread, here. I believe that Michael was very gentle, sweet, shy and naturally soft-spoken (a type of speaking-voice that the majority of his siblings and his mother also have, as far as family “traits” are concerned). Do those traits he had seem “feminine” to some people? Yes, they do. Or, are they just HUMAN ones that don’t necessarily fit into these old-fashioned, rigid “Gender” stereotypes of how boys and girls, men and women* —— And, I’m simply talking about *biological, normal, natural-born Males and Females, just for the sake of this discussion, not to make a point of confusing things or making them complicated, here. —— are “supposed to” behave and act like?

With that being said, Michael was unquestionably Male, through and through, when it came to certain aspects of his behavior. But, his post-surgery looks/outward physical appearance became increasingly more and more “androgynous,” from “Thriller”/“Victory” onwards, all the way up to “This Is It.” That’s just a fact. He never appeared that way, at any previous time in his life up to that point, before the “Thriller”/“Victory” era at the height of his career.

Sure, he wore his hair in different styles that looked “feminine,” from that point onwards, wore “women’s” cosmetics and eye make-up to emphasize and draw attention to his big, BEAUTIFUL eyes —— one of the few natural physical characteristics of his face that NEVER actually changed at all, which remained with him throughout his entire life —— and, he wore lipstick on his lips.

His speaking- and singing-voices sounded, to me, in my honest opinion, not so much like he was of one gender or the other, exclusively (and, I don’t even want to classify them in that way, other than to use the words “androgynous,” “gender-neutral” and “agender”), but they sounded extremely “young” for an adult. Not only that, he never “faked” the sound of his voice; It was completely 100% REAL, absolutely NOTHING about it was “phony,” contrary to what some people have always wanted to believe about him.
 
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no men who choose to wear their hair long with beautiful facial features are not always feminine. i feel M was masculine bordering on androgynous. I think prince was more feminine especially in 1991. if i compare images from that year , Michael was always the masculine one without a doubt.


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I agree with your points, @wendijane, to some extent. But Prince, especially from the Late-1970’s/Early-1980’s to around 2000 or so (before he started to greatly tone down his onstage act and public image/appearance/personae, dressing much more conservatively in his later years, mostly due to significant changes in his personal beliefs, amongst other reasons), got away with his having worn certain outfits and articles of clothing, at that time —— like his previously having worn bikini underwear onstage, along with high heels, lace gloves, puffy-sleeved blouses and see-through-butt pants, for example, at different times of his career —— that Michael, O.T.O.H., wouldn’t even dare to be caug/ht or seen in, PERIOD.

Prince would wear some form of facial hair —— whether it was only a thin mustache on his upper lip, a complete full beard, or something in-between, whatever the case —— much more often than Michael had, whose face was mostly clean-shaven. Though both men were thin, small-built —— even with their differences in height (one of them at 5'9" or 5'10," the other at 5'2" or 5'3," respectively) —— they both had “pretty” facial features (as Prince’s were naturally that way and Michael’s came about through doctors surgically reducing the size and changing the shape of his nose, as it kept getting narrower, smaller and its tip increasingly more upturned, from “Thriller” onwards, making his already enormous, BEAUTIFUL eyes, with such long lashes, stand out even more), and they both wore eye make-up, Michael always dressed “masculine,” the way most men normally do, while Prince didn’t always dress that way until much later on in his life.

Their natural voice-types couldn’t have been any more different from one another’s —— like night and day —— as Prince’s voice (both in singing and in speech) was naturally a little bit heavier-timbred, a much deeper, lower-pitched and slightly “older”-sounding Bass-Baritone that could extend upwards as high as “Falsetto” and “Whistle”-Pitch Register when he sang, while Michael’s, as an adult, was an extremely High Tenor that never truly “lost” any of its former “child Soprano”-like Upper Range (because, though he would use “Falsetto” occasionally —— like, every once in a blue moon on some songs, but not on all of them, when he would hit high notes —— he could still sing high notes without ever necessarily having had to rely on it) even while the Lower Register had slightly expanded downwards to near-“Baritone”-like notes by the time he reached middle age; It had maintained, throughout his adult life and career, its “androgynous,” “young” sound as well.

I very strongly believe that Prince, in spite of his natural, non-surgical facial features (unlike what had been done to Michael’s nose, and the enhancement of the dimple in his chin, during and after “Thriller,” that seemed to have changed the proportions of his entire face), his hairstyles and diminutive, small size —— no matter how he looked or the way he dressed when in public (from the Late-1970’s to when he changed his style from outrageous and controversial [no pun intended] to a much more toned-down and conservative one, by comparison, from the Early-2000’s onwards) —— he still came across as a totallymasculine” man, when it came to his behavior.

Meanwhile, O.T.O.H., Michael had “work” done on his nose, and had his chin-dimple enhanced, during the “Thriller” and subsequent “post-‘Thriller’ ” eras, wore women’s eye make-up and other cosmetics on his face; The hairstyles he wore at the time obviously looked “feminine” as well. And yet, he wore very, very undoubtedly “masculine” clothes, shoes, and so forth. Everything else about him was either “young,” “childlike” or “androgynous”/“gender-neutral” —— to describe the sound of his voice, no matter in what way he used it (to speak or to sing), for instance —— or “masculine,” to describe the way he danced or some other aspects of his behavior.
 
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analogue;4259056 said:
Michael wasn’t “feminine,” but he wasn’t “masculine” either. I think he was somewhere in the middle.

Yes, Michael was, @analogue, when it came to certain aspects. But, we also have to discuss the factor of him, once he grew up out of his childhood and adolescence stages, and then, upon his maturity into adult life, having aspects of himself that still seemed so very “young” for his age. Like particular physical aspects such as the sound of his voice —— as it didn’t matter in whatever way he used it, whether for singing or for speech —— for instance, though there is no specific adult “Gender” classification that I would put it in, since, to me, his voice didn’t quite sound fully “adult” at all to begin with, let alone that whole issue of “ ‘feminine’ VS. ‘masculine.’ ”

Before “Thriller” his hairstyles were mainly “masculine” as were his facial features. Yet, THE one and only aspect of those features that was naturally “feminine” in any way at all, throughout his entire lifetime, was the overall appearance (size and shape) of his eyes. During and after the “Thriller”/“Victory” era —— and, for the rest of his life —— his face and hairstyles would gradually become more and more “feminine”/“androgynous,” with cosmetic surgery done on him to reduce the size of, to make narrower/to narrow down and to change the shape of his nose, and the use of women’s make-up to emphasize his eyes (from that point onwards), playing a large role in drastically changing his outward appearance. This is aside from his having dealt with autoimmune diseases, which is a totally separate issue altogether.

The way he dressed was always unquestionably and completely “masculine” as were some, but not all, aspects of his behavior. Like all of the rest of us, Michael had aspects of his physical/bodily self and his behavior that, I’d much rather say, were just plain HUMAN, period, instead of having to put them in separate “Age” and/or “Gender” classifications.
 
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I think what tends to happen when people are more androgynous is that others then tend to focus on the traits that don't match the person's assigned gender, hence people thinking Michael was more feminine than other men. (Case in point: I'm nonbinary and assigned female at birth, and even though I look and act androgynous, people sometimes think of that as more masculine because they're noticing the things that don't align with a "typical" afab person.) Does that make sense to people? When a person sometimes doesn't fit gender norms, people are going to notice the ways they don't conform more than the ways they do.
 
I totally agree with your point about people not fitting into any so-called “Gender ‘norms,’ ” Nantucket Cat, but you don’t necessarily have to “identify as” anything other than your actual biological gender to do that, do you? Yes, there are people who choose to “identify as” whichever one of the two genders they please (or, as anything else, whatever the case may be, for that matter), but even in those cases, their biology (meaning: their D.N.A. and natural chromosomes) will NEVER change. Michael was a genetic, biological Male through and through, but he had some aspects of himself —— as some would refer to a “side” of himself, or what quite a number of us have of ourselves —— that came across to many people as opposite of what he was, especially from “Thriller” onwards. If I may ask you one more question, here: “Who, or what, is an ‘Afab’?” I would like to know.
 
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Afab= assigned female at birth, so anyone whose birth certificate says female is afab. (And likewise, anyone whose birth certificate says male is amab.) It's usually used in LGBTQ+ circles.

Obviously you don't have to be trans or otherwise identify as something other than your assigned birth gender to go against gender norms; certainly in Michael's case, I don't get the sense that he identified as anything other than male. I just thought it was relevant to bring up in my post to give some context to my perspective.
 
Thank you, Nantucket Cat, for your defining for me what an “Afab”/“Amab” is. You have your own unique perspective on what this whole issue of “ ‘masculine’ VS. ‘feminine’ ” is, especially, because of how you “identify” and “present” yourself publicly, as other than your “assigned” natural birth-gender. It has become commonplace, nowadays for people to claim that they “identify” as something other than what they really are, or to consider themselves as being “-fluid,” “gender-neutral”* —— *a designation that some people use for themselves, that I use as somewhat of a descriptive term for certain aspects of Michael (were they bodily, physical, and in the sense of some, but not all, aspects of his behavior) that seem to me, as well as to quite a few others, to have been that way, though he thoroughly “identified” himself as Male —— instead of accepting that one’s physical body and genetic make-up exist as they, in fact, unquestionably DO. And, since he grew up out of his childhood/young adolescence and into adulthood, his behavior, his voice, and certain other aspects of him “identfied” much, much more with young children than with other adults his own age. What is your honest opinion, on this?
 
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Afab= assigned female at birth, so anyone whose birth certificate says female is afab. (And likewise, anyone whose birth certificate says male is amab.) It's usually used in LGBTQ+ circles.

I don't really understand "assigned female" and "assigned male".....it's not as though it's just picked at random by medical staff on a child's birthday. To me, gender itself is a biological fact as old as time and is based on very specific physical features.
 
Mikky Dee;4259148 said:
I don't really understand "assigned female" and "assigned male".....it's not as though it's just picked at random by medical staff on a child's birthday. To me, gender itself is a biological fact as old as time and is based on very specific physical features.

Me neither, Mikky Dee. It seems that, ever since this whole issue of how people (supposedly) choose to “identify” themselves became as currently popular as it is —— not to mention various lifestyles/walks of life gaining more and more acceptance, all over the world —— there has been this attitude of: “O.K., let’s act like no one had ever learned the most basic principles of Human Biology in school, amongst such principles being that normal ‘XX-chromosome’ Females and ‘XY-chromosome’ Males DO exist, and only focus our energy mainly on people who deviate from ‘the norm,’ not just bodily and physically, but behaviorally-wise as well.” Do you get what I’m saying?

These days, people desire to “identify” themselves as whatever they please, in whatever way they like, based solely on how they “feel” inside —— along with the idea that “Gender” is a “social construct” —— rather than the proof of “Gender” as an unquestionably biological FACT, a REALITY of everyday life that exists from one’s birth onwards.

True enough, some people “feel like” they want to dress and act according to their own perception of themselves, and want the rest of us to go along with that perception and how they want to be viewed/perceived. One’s gender is a genetic, bodily and physical reality of life, not a “social construct” based on what others publicly see and hear of someone, and not merely based on the way a person dresses, speaks, behaves or socially interacts. One can behave, dress, speak, publicly present him-, her- or themselves and/or come across as either completely “masculine,” “feminine,” “androgynous,” “gender-neutral,” “gender-fluid” or any other way in-between, but one’s physical bodily genetic structure will ALWAYS be what it was and is from birth.
 
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Well, Bluemoon, even though such people are born with “ambiguous” body parts and they may even have unusual sets of chromosomes —— which occasionally happens with some children born that way, in rare cases, but with most (the vast majority of) children being/having been normally healthy Males or Females at birth —— even those children are either born Male or Female, genetically speaking.

Anyone born with a “Y”-chromosome —— no matter how many “X’s” are behind it and how “feminine” he looks, sounds, acts, or the way that other people perceive him —— such a person is still a genetically biological Male. Same thing applies to someone born without a “Y”-chromosome; She is still genetically and biologically Female, no matter how “masculine” she looks, how her voice sounds, or the way she behaves and is perceived by the public.
 
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