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PW I was not being unwelcoming, nor was I yelling at you, I thought I had made it clear that I did not get your post. I did disagree with the way you worded Portia's queer status, I don't feel that is right. |
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They are fierce femmes :4femme: :D I've said this in another thread...while I don't think stars are the end-all-be-all in terms of representing the gay community, I believe they have some bit of responsibility to not act like assholes. I mean, they all make mistakes and do dumb things in the eye of the media, but is it really so smart to lambaste them when they use the wrong pronoun or say something not as evolved as we try to be? I'm really an advocate for education; esp for stars and media types. |
I get a little irked about movie stars or singers being representative of the LGBTQIA community, especially when so many of them have been sanitized by their agents as to be more "acceptable".
Look at Rachel Maddow. Perfectly fine Lesbian who was kinda "dolled up" when she got her tv show. Ellen? Same thing. Hollywood culture is (to me) generally vapid anyway so Im really not all that suprised when people make asshattish comments. Now, let Dorothy Allison make a "men with boobs" comment and I would be up her ass so quick it wouldn't be funny. Maybe its because I expect more from her because she has already shown herself to be an elevated thinker. Maybe its because I KNOW she identifies as a Femme. More thinking on that one. |
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So if we disagree with you we are unwelcoming and yelling? We have to agree with you to be welcoming? I personally was offended when you jumped in out of no where saying that someone who has dated women for several years is straight. Most of us have been called straight too because we don't look gay, or because someone wants our partners for themselves, can you see where it might be upsetting for you to use those same words, star or not? I bristle when someone suggests anyone queer is straight unless they have specific PROOF and even so, it is none of your or our business. Have you been on the site before under a different name? You seem pretty opinionated about this and us. |
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There isn't a training period for anything, just like there is no way to say what makes someone gay or not make sense? Can you share your Femme experience with us? please.. Thank you. |
I have been realizing today exactly how much I still defer internally to both masculinity and maleness. I then feel oppressed and resentful of both. I feel like if a guy or butch says something about how she/he/hy/etc would like for femmes or women to behave differently, I feel oppressed and resentful due specifically to the fact that I weigh their criticisms so heavily. And then, "quit criticizing femmes, quit oppressing femmes, you don't have the right to oppress us," is the loudest and clearest voice in my mind.
Because of this cacophony between my ears, I cannot tell how much of this is just inside me and how much is coming from without. It feels like it's from without, but the human brain is weird like that sometimes. The issue is still with myself. If I could somehow treat all genders and levels of masculinity or femininity with equal respect rather than feeling compelled to defer and then resenting the power I myself have handed to both masculinity and maleness, then I would have so much more clarity and peace within myself as a femme, as a woman, as a member of this community and as a member of the human race. It would feel so lovely if one day there were no part inside me that felt the compulsion to crawl just because some masculine or male person voiced a complaint or expectation. Then the choice would move more easily beyond compliance or defiance and into the realm of real respect and self-respect, real ability to hear and a real ability to respond to criticism, observations, complaints and requests from across the gender spectrum in a more reasoned and clear way. The thing is - I do not know how to unlearn this. I dont know how to remove that compliance/defiance button inside myself. Does anybody else experience this? Has anybody else successfully purged this or unlearned it or patched in some neutralizing attitudes or in any other way moved beyond this? If so, how? |
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So back to the original post and how I see myself as Femme. Several thoughts. I do find that since I "came out" as Femme after many years of being a Feminine Lesbian who dated mostly jocks and Butches who did not really claim Femme, I dress more femininely. Or maybe I feel like I am safe to dress and act in a more feminine manner when I am with a Butch? I don't know. I don't think anyone would know I am even Queer at all, unless I am with a Butch. It used to bother me, now I really don't care. As for impacting Female IDd Butches....I wonder if when people seem them with us, they are more likely to assume they are men? At a glance do they see boy/girl? Though, it seems that other Femmes are the main ones in real time who seem to have a problem calling Cynthia and Deb and other female idd Butches "she". I am not sure how we can help this, other than continuing to educate who we can. |
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Not sure where to start to introduce my femmeness to the rest of you on this thread. Let's see. Out as a femme for about 3 decades (although I didn't have the language for it back then) starting in a small town in GA where there were lots of butches (on a military base) and not so many visible femmes. Moved to DC--NO FEMMES TO BE FOUND, and not so many butches either. Been in NYC for about 20 years and landed first at the Lesbian Herstory Archives where the founders--Joan Nestle and Deb Edel--really introduced me to BF herstory and I began to lean into my own femme identity. My first BF sexual experience was with a butch who notched her belt on newly minted femmes, straight women exploring sexuality to be more to the point. At the time that worked for me too as I was interested in another butch but had no sexual experience and didn't want to try it out first with someone that I was way more than a little bit hot for. And, I had one relationship that ended when the butch figured hy was more attracted to elusive and challenging straight women than to femmes. Devestated at the time but in retrospect a great learning for me. I look very straight on first glance, but as you wrote in an earlier post here, it doesn't take 5 minutes in a conversation to figure out that I'm femme. In some sense the fact that in my earlier life I 'could pass' helped me to come out. I was tired of the heteronormative assumptions by everyone, including a very dyke older boss at the time. I have a son who I raised alone (he's 33 now) and in addition to my appearance that sealed the straight assumption since it was long before butches and femmes had babies of their own accord. I work in a field dominated by straight men and I know that I've fully swallowed my femme self because none of them try to hit on me anymore! Enough rambling for now, but happy to say more as we get to know each other here. |
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I kind of have the opposite thing going on, if a man or someone I perceive as male says something about how I should act I laugh, if a woman does I take it to heart way too much. I wonder if maybe it's how we grew up? our childhoods? Maybe because my Mom died when I was so young, I yearn for female approval and am more freaked out when I don't get it? |
As for passing as straight....
I have always, just once, wanted to get the nod from another queer person. You know, like Butches and women who "look" more stereotypically gay do. Maybe at the reunion, we can give each other the nod? |
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Are you looking to explore how Femme Top energy isn’t in masculine or Daddy form within someone's kink or how its feminine energy is everyday life? I see the two as distinctly different, yet similar and often related. Let's see if I can expand... within BDSM and the dynamics of mine and Jess' relationship, if I am in Top space, its under the direction of my Syr and is feminine in nature. I would be Ma'am. I do have a masculine Daddy Top energy that is never present with my Syr. In my relationships/interludes before Jess, this wasn't always the case. I can say that within Top headspace, I am more comfortable in the masculine. In my day-to-day world, my Femme Top energy is present. Most times, it just takes the form of being a more-than-capable business person and doing my job of running the company I work for... sometimes it is present in more of a "Mean Mommy" way in that in my position of authority, I often have to temper constructive criticism with the natural nurturer/caretaker I am. In our bedroom, my Femme Top energy is never present. Again, pre-Jess, I was quite comfortable being either fucker or fuckee. I have never felt "less than" in celebrating and owning the strength I find in being a Femme or in being female; although, I have had many experiences of people (of any ID/orientation) try to impose such upon me. I'm rather quick to remind them of just whom they are dealing with - and on my worst of days, it’s a force to be reckoned with. On my best days, one might wanna pack a lunch. Quote:
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I'm incredibly perplexed by this... |
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Awesome that you know all those people!! Thanks for sharing, we have to agree to disagree, but I am all about supporting the people who are just out, you see I have a daughter who is out and supporting her is my responsibility as a Mom and as a Queer.. |
I'll rephrase to say that I was always way out before I moved to NYC and should have more aptly described the experience with the femmes and butches there as my first community experience with butch and femme. Sometimes I don't write very clearly. Sorry.
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I know that for ME, getting to know the vast array of femmes that I have, has helped me evolve (and continue to evolve) into the femme that I am... one that is finally comfortable in my own skin. When I came out at 23, my social circle was very limited to my local gay community... where the butch-femme community was not present at all. It wasn't until I was in my late 20s and started meeting folks from all over (thanks to the wonderful internet), that I actually started embracing & claiming being femme... instead of just being "the girlie girl".
Luckily over the last 15 years, I've met some amazing femmes, that showed me that we come in all shapes and sizes, that we are more than what we look like, more than who we fuck & how we fuck, and we write our own story. If it weren't for those people, embracing the "newly femme", I wouldn't be who I am today. So THANK YOU for leading by example, for showing the rest of the world that femme is whatever, whoever and however we claim it to be for ourselves! |
Years before i figured out i was gay, i was attracted to butches. i didn't discover the b-f community until i came online. There is no b-f community at all here in my SC. Once i started spending time online, i figured out i was femme. When i called myself that to a friend here, she blew it off and said, "whatever". Since that time, i've usually felt a little defensive of my femme-ness, and unsure of it at times too. i have never been what i perceive to be "high" femme...i don't wear make-up or skirts on a daily basis, my nails haven't been properly done in years, i am not a fashion-conscious girl at all.
i've had to make that clear to more than one butch who was more attracted to our "norm" of what a femme is. i have noticed that in a chat room, many butches will pay more attention to the 'high' femmes, but it's usually in a overtly flirty way, which i'm fine missing out on, personally. There is one particular femme online that, when i see her pictures, i automatically think, "yeah, i'll never be as femme as her". Then logic kicks in and i start thinking about how much time, energy and money she must expend to maintain that look.... i just don't have it in me! i've had this internal struggle for many years, and not just with my femme-ness. i often say that my insides don't match my outsides. Outside, i look like a 40-something generic, overweight, average soccer mom. i blend in to society-at-large well (except for my socks, which i think is as comfortable as i'll ever be outwardly expressing my individuality). Inside, i am a free-flowing hippie. i am thinner, younger and wear hippie-ish skirts. i am much less prudish, mainstream and much more "free". :hippie: |
I think it is very important to be there as a source of help for people just coming out. I wish I had had someone I looked up to in the community back in the early 80's to help me along.
One of the main reasons I participate on this website is to help provide a place for Femmes and Butches who have no actual community in their areas to have resources to find friends and ask questions. Outside of really large cities many of us never saw or knew another Femmes till we found community on the Internet. Yes, I have wonderful Femme friends in real time now, and I am so thankful for them and for those who try to reach out to the newly out and the youth among us. Thank you Medusa for this thread and for this website! You actually were one of the Femmes I met at my very first Butch-Femme function and I will never forget that. |
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Them are just props honey, make up, glitter, hair iron, blah! Femme is who we are inside, and our gender nothing to do with the smoke and mirrors! Though I will tell you, with 5 kids if I had to drive a mini van ever, I would of screamed bloody murder, they weren't macho enough for me! ha!:rolleyes: |
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I remember someone saw an old avatar of me in a feather boa. It was taken when I had on a ton of makeup, false eyelashes and was dressed up for a Slut Night. She expected that I always dressed like that...she actually acted dissapointed when she met me and I did not have on make up and had on yoga pants and a t shirt. :) The High/Low Femme freaks me out. I think it puts pressure on us to dress or act a certain way, when we should just be ourselves. |
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