Long Time Caller, First Time Listener #20

Welcome to Long Time Caller, First Time Listener, a column where we, Trixie and Katya, give you, the reader, advice. Our answers may not be valuable, but they will definitely be irrelevant. 

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Want your question answered by us? Email goopedsubstack@gmail.com. Please include a name/pseudonym and your pronouns!

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Question 1: As a fairly tall lady person (5'10) I struggle so much with tights and pantyhose–the crotch always ends up between my knees! How do you keep your tights up???

-Amanda

Trixie: The real answer, Amanda, is that we don’t have the same legs as you. Our legs aren’t flesh and bone. Drag queen legs are layers and layers of tights stacked upon mountains of cushy padding. It’s actually very gross when you think that our penises are also smashed to hell under all that. If you had x-ray vision, you would probably see my penis pressed up against the tights like a stuffed Garfield window cling in the backseat of a station wagon. 

The other real answer is that the best strategy is to buy the biggest tights possible. I’m not sure what size you are, but I’m a women’s dress size 14/16 and I have to buy like XXL size tights. Even then, my crotch still sags behind me like a disobedient terrier leashed on a morning stroll. 

My other more obvious tip would be to pull those suckers up to basically your bra. That way they have a long way to slip. Hands down the best tights I’ve had for stretch and durability are Snag tights. We talked about them on UNHhhh and received dozens of these tights and they are truly remarkable. Incredible stretch with unflinching opacity. They come in all different prints and colors. I am a person who is not good with words or gestures as means of expressing myself. Wrapping my legs in colored fabric is the only way I know how to communicate and I shouldn’t be locked out of such a freeing experience just because I’m tall. And neither should you!

Katya: Welcome to the Tall Girl club, Amanda! Please have a seat and you’ll be joined in a moment by myself and Cindy Crawford, another stunning woman who shares our curse: being very stunning and quite tall.  I’ve had this panty hose problem for years, but recently I discovered the most marvelous invention: suspender tights from Capezio. They’re lovely showgirl tights but they’ve got little straps that go over your shoulders, kind of like a little nylon leotard. Are they practical and convenient for everyday wear? I don’t think so. Are they a real hassle if you have to go to the bathroom? Absolutely. Are they expensive? Of course. But will the crotch of your hose sag down to your knees by lunch time? I think the fuck not. Try ‘em!

Question 2: Hello hotties.

Long story short, a girl I have been crushing on and who I've also been flirting back and forth with for weeks now just casually dropped into conversation that she's married. To a man. And has been since the ripe old age of eighteen. (I'm from Utah. Young marriage is common here. So is suppressed queerness. And they often go hand in hand.) This confused and shattered me for a sec, thinking I completely misread our interactions, but I got over it. Until she continued to unmistakably flirt with me. I want to flirt back because I like her, but I don't know if that's acceptable or even worth it because she is married. Should I stop, or is it fair game because she's the one who initiates it? 

-very confused lesbian

Trixie:  You’re not going to like my answer, Lesbian. I can tell you’re writing to us because you’d like me to recommend some burn-it-to-the-ground sapphic gesture of passion. You want me to recommend that you break up her marriage, help her accept her attraction to women, and ride off into a pink sunset on a giant Hitachi wand. 

You could do all of that–but is it fair to you? You deserve to be in a consensual girl-on-girl relationship that is unbridled and mutually satisfying. I don’t know why you would want to stick yourself in a situation where you have to coax this closet case out of her marriage bed using breadcrumbs and a lesbian-centric mixtape. I understand that as a woman who likes women, you have an inherent all-or-nothing sensibility when it comes to romance. This is often an asset when applied to circumstances in which both parties are ready and willing. It sounds like this girl definitely has sparks with you, but that doesn’t mean she’s really ever going to make the jump. 

There’s also a forbidden fruit thing going on here. Would you be as attracted to her if she was available? In my experience, queer people tend to want what they can’t have. This is particularly telling in the way gay men tend to want straight men and gay women tend to want women who haven’t really discovered their attraction to women yet. 

YOU are a fabulous young individual who shouldn’t have to do heavy lifting to get someone to appreciate you. Flirting is fun! Flirt with this girl all you want. But there are many other exceptional ladies out there who are plump, wet, and ready.

Katya: When it comes to interacting with attractive married people who’ve got the hots for me, I like to apply what I call the Smithsonian rule: I’ll have a look, read the description, maybe even splurge for the audio tour, but I never, ever jump the little corded fence to hump the bones on display. There are too many single hotties out there with no baggage that you can play with, and you deserve to frolic on a level playground. Maybe you can provide some support should she feel comfortable confiding in you, but again, keep it cute.

Question 3: Hello Darlings, 

For the longest time I have struggled with my mental health. Now I know I'm not coming to you ladies for professional help but at this point I'll take anything. I've been speaking to therapists and guidance professionals all my teenage years and it seems like nothing has really impacted me.

My question to you both is: what makes you want to wake up in the morning? 

What gives you the power to move past difficult times? And to have that encouragement to always want to improve yourselves?

But I just want to admit that you two are my happy place. You gals can always make me laugh even on the darkest days. 

-love from Mathilda xox

Trixie: Respectfully, I have an unfairly elastic disposition and I am pretty much blessed in that regard. I am an optimistic realist; highly pragmatic and feeling good about it. For this reason, I don’t feel comfortable advising you on your mental health. HOWEVER, you asked for it. And I do own a sexy nurse costume so let’s just go for it.

We are not all playing with the same deck of Pokémon cards. That much is true. We all have different circumstances, advantages, struggles, etc. And most importantly, we all have different capacities for dealing. For some people, they can experience a major life trauma and go to work the next day. I have attended family funerals and gone to the club the same night. I have been called insensitive and callous at times but also commended for my formidable evenness in temperament. For others, they can be completely derailed by a minor inconvenience and never seen or heard from again. Greta Garbo famously disappeared from the public eye in 1941 because she burned off some of her hair with a curling iron while attempting to participate in a TikTok trend.

Just remember that happy people get sad and sad people sometimes feel happy. Hot people sometimes feel gross, ugly people often feel great about themselves. Rich people often feel financially pinned against a wall and broke folks often don’t feel broke at all. It’s all perspective. For me, I’m happiest working. Waking up and applying myself to my drag and my businesses makes me happiest. Then sometimes I have to write on Substack and that can be a huge bummer for me. But somehow I made it through.

The only thing we all have in common is that we all sometimes feel like shit. In that sense, trauma and struggle is the way we can all relate to each other through empathy and shared experiences. Buck up, Mathilda. You’re doing fab. 

P.S. I offer this not as a cosmetics sales person but as a personal note–a small beauty routine goes a long way. Paint your nails, curl your hair, put on perfume, etc. It dramatically changes everything!

Katya: Okay Mathilda, I’m sorry you’re struggling, so let me put on my unlicensed clinician hat (it’s a beautiful plum colored wool beret) and offer my advice. Since I don’t have a full dossier on you, I’ll keep it general. Let me just find my green beret. Okay. 

I spent a lot of my teen years deeply unhappy, most of the time not knowing why. There are so many reasons why we feel unhappy, countless chemicals, hormones, environmental factors, people, weather patterns, etc all swirl and churn loudly in the giant cauldron of our brains and bodies. I’ll share a short list of things that have helped me (before I became famous–now my life is perfect, sorry!)

1. There’s your life and there’s your life situation. 

2. Moving the body around is a must. Don’t think of exercise–too dull and laborious. Think of Exorcise–expel the demon of dissatisfaction through dancing, dodgeball, etc,

3. Look up Thich Nhat Hahn’s description of nirvana on YouTube 

4. Try wearing a funky hat

5. Revel in the fact that there is no such thing as me or you of this or then. It’s already happening then just like it will, in the same way it was, and always is. 

6. Wellbutrin?

7. “How can life get better, what more could I get? Add polish to perfect and then I’m just wet.” –Me