TV AS AN APTITUDE

Jeanne 13-W-6 FPE

ARTICLE

Most RV's theoretical speculations tend to be concerned with ra- tionalizations about why they have the feelings they do. We are all searching for a better understanding of our femme selves. An approach worth considering, I think, is to ask whether femmepersonating be- havior may, in an important part, be an aptitude. In other words, apart from the questions of whether others would want to be femmepersona- tors, could they? A non-TV colleague of mine, who has very little linguistic ability, remarked that TV is sort of like a foreign language to him.

This suggested parallel with language prompted my consideration of that possible aspect of TV motivation. As illustrated quite graphically in the recent book "Body Language," the non-verbal communication medium makes use of signals with most attributes of a language. Al- though this particular book barely scratches the surface of the fascinat- ing gendral distinctions in "body language" it is evident to any thought- ful FP that the girls' body language is radically different from the boys'. A book or at least an extensive treatise could well be written on this subject alone. Suffice it to say here, however, that it takes some kind of ability to "speak" two body languages with reasonable fluency. I wonder how many sisters in early experiences "passing" have not had to think twice in making the appropriate gestures and nuances of facial expression in communication with GG's on a woman-woman trans- actional basis. The ability to learn such "vocabulary" as a "second language" is not a minor “linguistic" achievement.

Quite a bit of research has been done on the subject of aptitudes. One of the principal workers in this field is Johnson O'Conner of the Human Engineering Laboratory. He has pointed out that an aptitude

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