Ani. Her daily life in zentai

It’s not common (yet) to wear zentai in public. There are some well-known exceptions (e.g. Aurora). But apart from photos (I fully agree that it’s already a lot!) you want to know more: people’s reaction, what they say, what they do, the feelings, who was around, what happened, when and why it all began, etc. But little can you get on that front. Sharing more information, answering questions, erasing another level of “virtuality” are not common. That costs time, efforts and penetrates deeper into the real person[ality].

On the other hand Wows! Cools! Please-mores! You-are-fantastics! You-are-beautifuls! are expected, wanted and cannot be lived without.

But now you can have a look behind that door.

Her name is Ani. “Ani” stands for anonymous. She wears a zentai suit in daily life to classes (the professors whose classes she wears the suit to were contacted ahead of time for permission), to Wal-mart, to the coffee shop, or wherever.

She’s a creepy, faceless, androgynous, undefined race, sometimes undefined gender, utterly featureless chick who challenges people’s comfortable norms simply by existing. It is a sponsored social experiment, an experiment with her own psychology, and a dynamic piece of performance art completely dependent on those she interacts with.

Some reactions from people:

“Cool! Awesome!”
“What is that suit about?”
“I think it’s about how everyone is equal, no matter what the race”
“Did I see what I think I just saw?”
“Oh, you’re a girl.”
“Is it hard to breathe in that thing?”
“Is this for weight loss?”
“You’re an art major, aren’t you?”
“Well. A blue person. That’s interesting.”
“Dramatic fashion statement, anyway.”
“This is cute and all, but you can’t wear it again if you come back here. You freaked out my employees.”
There was a lot of open staring, conspicuous (and often nervous) laughing behind my back, and even a bit of profanity. “What the f*ck is that?”

“The more people have a chance to see that Ani behaves perfectly normally, the more people take to ignoring (or pretending to ignore) the suit entirely.”

“The most accepting group, by and large, was the teen and twenty-something crowd. The least accepting was the sixty plus demographic…although I can think of specific, outstanding exceptions to both rules.”

Currently, the experiment is over (actually, there was nothing about fetishism). Here you can find the entire story: http://aniadventure.livejournal.com