I totally agree femme is not about make-up, heels, etc. Never wear heels or use makeup, well ok, occasionally I will powder my nose if it is shiny and I guess I have been known to curl my eyelashes-hey I like how it looks.

I wear my hair long just because it feels like *me*.

Joking aside, those are superficial things.

To me, femme is an essence, the counterpoint to a butch, the ying and yang, my complement, if you will.

The same way I can spot a butch a mile away in a snowstorm, I can spot a femme, regardless of how she is dressed.

Lady Snow,

Girlfriend, I do love the way you think! This brings me back to the first time I tried using a harness and cock to fuck my girlfriend. It was WEIRD, I tell you! But then again, so was the first time I Topped someone, as oppose to being the bottom. Certainly it took some mental work to get into the headspace I thought was needed by me to do that. LOL

I think that Femme can also be cock hangin, boot wearing mean mother fucking... Ma'am!

I don't fuck with a cock because I'm topping, nor do I view being penetrated as bottoming how I enjoy sex (which to me is pleasure nothing to do with the binary) has nothing (for me) to do with my gender (Femme). That's the beauty of it all for me Femme is raw, unapologetic POWER.. That's HOT!

So very happy to meet you, Julie!!

Starbuck,

Thanks for your response. This has me wondering now too, since you ID (and others have too) as a "soft femme". What constitutes a "soft" femme?

Ann

i discovered femme ID through wanting butches. i was pretty androgynous. In some ways, i still am. i am probably andro on the femme side if one is just using those terms descriptively.

i like the fact that i stretch the definition some. If someone butched me up, i probably could pass as a butch.

Still, i am femme even though i am not that feminine. i am femme even though i will date other femmes. i am femme because i decided i was femme at some point and made it mine.

:moonstars: Thats the stone-femme vs. soft-femme for me at least. A stone-femme is girly girl 24-7, doesn't leave the house without makeup, wont do activities that might break a nail or mess her hair. Where as a soft-femme is more likely to go hiking, jump into the ocean, risk breaking a nail or fix a toilet, that kind of thing. XD

Differences!
 

I'm a stone femme till I'm not, it's more when I'm fucking, strapping that it's present. I don't want to be touched *I* want to be the one touching and fucking. If I'm getting blown no matter how deep down the throat my cock is he better keep his balance on his own since I forbid touch. My attire or cosmetics have nothing to do with my stone self. That's just another view of stone. :)


Lovin' this thread!

Snow, thanks for your clarification! That is what I thought the definition of Stone was, having more to do with sex than a mindset or look? I knew a woman years ago that ID'd as a Stone Butch, she always told me that was because she did NOT allow anyone to touch her, she only would be the one touching. It had nothing to do with her having a more masculine "look" with her short hair or her body language and stride or the clothing that she wore.
And as others have now written in this thread, being a "soft" femme or a "soft" butch, to Me, may just be the fact that they ID closer to the middle or centrist place on the spectrum, rather than to one extreme or another. Kind of like in politics, not the far right or far left, but a moderate. Does this make sense?

Part of me right now is wondering why we (me?) have such a NEED to pinpoint and label something like this. Put it in a box, so to speak. Do we think we will understand it better, if the idea is safely and tightly locked away inside that box? Silly, huh?

This brings to mind the year that I "butched up" for a Halloween costume contest. White t-shirt, leather vest, black jeans, Daddy's cap, fake handlebar mustache, long flogger hanging from my belt. I actually won first place at that contest (noone could believe it was me!) I adopted a stance, adopted a very masculine stride, had a masculine PRESENCE!

What was REALLY hilarious with that get up is the story of me packing, and what happened for THAT! Now I think I am gonna have to hold on to THAT particular story till the Reunion this October. ROFL

Loving this!!
 

What a great way to describe it Gemme, I have many compartments to my Femme... To name a few..

Stone

Daddy

Leather

Master

They are all compartmentalized in their neat little tiny pieces of me who is the main vessel of Femme Fabulousity. Each tiny compartment is a piece of me. It's vital and important... I find Femme to be beautiful regardless of size, shape, race, presentation. We are fierce, feminine, masculine, strong, virile forces of nature... The high low hierarchy drives me bananas, because it leads to a better than and leaves our sister Femme's in a place of questioning.. I'm glad a bunch of us are in here displaying our differences proudly and talking about it, questioning, laughing, discussing and getting to know one another.... :praying:

Long ago, I came to know “femme” as an adjective which I applied to myself. Now, I know myself to be Femme, a proper noun. It’s empowering to know who you are. Thank you all for reflecting back the many strong, beautiful, powerful faces of Femme. :bunchflowers:

I am not sure this is where this belongs, but the thread moved me to where I really felt like I had to get this off my chest... I hope I do not offend anyone.

I don't know that I can even say I know I am a femme. When people see me they think straight. When I see me I don't know what I think.
I don't feel gay, I don't feel straight, I don't feel bi, and if I am really honest, I do not know I could define any of those things, much less define something as complex and confusing (to me) as “femme” or “butch.” Based on superficial appearance type criteria and the fact that a lesbian friend of me told me I am femme, that is what I think I am. In day to day life I do not “identify” as anything.

I am hesitant to share this next part because as independent as I like to think I am I do worry about what people will think of me. Here it goes

I am not out.

I chose to disclose this because, for a person that is almost always surrounded by people, I feel pretty alone having no one to talk to about this. The vast majority of my friends are straight and all but one of my lesbian friends think I am straight.

Plus I am here to make friends, not get laid, if I am not honest about who I am how can I expect that to happen? If someone is turned off or offended by my decision, that is their prerogative, and I just say, “Fine. Don’t date me."


The butch thing for me is based on a pretty small sample size. I am honest about the fact I am not out and that leaves me in a pretty small dating pool, limited typically to people that are looking for NSA sex. That is not really my scene, but my life had some dramatic changes about 2 years ago and about 3 months ago I made some decisions that many would condemn me for. As a result, I had my first encounters with women. I have kissed two women (yes, only two total) one was femme and the other was butch (both of these id’s were their own and formed my cursory understanding of these terms based on appearance and attitude)

Before the kisses, I did not know much about either of these women other than the femme was attracted to me and I was attracted to the butch. Kissing the femme did nothing for me and felt awkward (sadly, I did not stop there and she ended up being batshit crazy. The lesson learned: Making decisions with a lonely vagina leads to 60 psychotic emails and texts a day that either started off with “Dear Goddess” or “Dear Heartless Bitch.” Fun times.)

Anyhoo…

Kissing the butch curled my toes, but I had gotten my emotional and psychological teeth kicked in by "the femme" only 3 months before meeting "the butch", so it stayed at only a kiss (ok, so I straddled her lap a bit… did I mention, the toe curling?)

When I see femme women I think, “She is beautiful. I wish I looked like that, walked like that, or dressed like that, etc…”, when I see butch women I think, “She is beautiful. I sure would like her to [censored] and I would sure like to [censored]”

Well, there it is. Any thoughts are appreciated. I have always known I was attracted to women, I just assumed it was something I had to live without. I fucked up and opened Pandora's box and it is all pretty painful and awful right now.

FWIW: If you choose to flame me I think a private message would be best so as to not ruin this great thread. Be warned though, I am tougher than I sound right now.