unbecomingness

Too stunned to resist, I allowed her to dress my hair, tying back the sidelocks with primrose ribbon, clucking over the unfeminine unbecomingness of my shoulder-length bob.

Melville tries to milk much of the scene for laughs, with Ishmael scoffing at "the unbecomingness" of "hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style."

Postures stiffen up; men grin and mug for the camera, as if to signal, like Melville's Ishmael, that they're in on the "unbecomingness" of what had come to be viewed as sexually ambivalent behavior.