The blurring of the sexes has been a mainstay throughout the history of representational art, and popular art of the twentieth century has not broken with this tendency. Whether through consciously manipulated personae or otherwise, countless stars of film, television, and pop music have displayed again and again that the division between masculine and feminine is often a frail one, and in many cases have served to help reverse "natural" standards altogether. Furthermore, while a number of androgynous figures in the media have sometimes become icons of gay and lesbian fans, many others have traversed the fantasy realms of heterosexual markets, challenging at yet another level the supposedly discrete categories of personal identity.

Of all of its many forms, the most obvious mode of gender-bending in popular culture has been drag. Male and female cross-dressing, however, has often been given unequal weight and meaning. On the one hand...