Salon de Femme--aut delectare aut prodesse est

[Bit]

What does Femme look like on me, and who inspires me? Well, the answer to the first one is way complicated, but the answer to the second is way simple: You inspire me. Every Femme in my community inspires me.

I learned to talk about being Femme in the Queer Female Community, online. I didn't have anything comparable where I was--mostly, I think, from lack of transportation, because certainly there was a Femme presence in Seattle when I was in the PNW!--and finding first the books in the bookstore (The Persistent Desire comes immediately to mind) and then a community online was mind-blowing and life-altering for me. At the point that I outgrew my first community, I was given a link to my second. In the meantime I moved from the PNW to the Midwest to the Southwest back to the Midwest, and the only stability I had through those years of unsettled relationships was my online community.

That's where I did my growing, and that's where I learned my language, and that's where I finally came into my understanding of the kind of Femme that I am.

I still remember my shocked relief when I first understood that it was okay to relax and just be who I always had been. It was so hard in the years when "being a girl" was not okay!! I think this makes me different in some ways from Femmes who have come out after it was okay to be Femme again... if you never feel rejected for your femininity or for your identity, if you never feel rejected for your energy or for your desires, then your experience of being a Femme is going to be more whole than mine has been; you will not have to spend time repairing the broken edges of so much of your inner being, and you will have a better understanding of yourself from the beginning.

Being Femme, for me, is not about what I look like. That's been a huge struggle for me. I have to work hard to quiet my inner fears, my legacy not just of the past when being Femme was not okay, but also my legacy of the years when being Femme was celebrated but ONLY if you matched the look of High Femme. Not only am I no glamor girl, I'm not particularly pretty AND I have to fight the masculinizing effects of PCOS. All of that does a real number on a person who wants to celebrate her femininity.

Before I go any further, I want to say that for me, Femme and femininity are NOT tied as tightly together as for some Femmes. For me, Femme is tied to "femaleness" in very strong ways--but there are lots of ways to be "female" and they are not all stereotypically feminine. I have found that when a Femme is strong and physically capable, willing and able to tackle "men's work," she is OFTEN told she is not Femme enough, or told she is really a Butch, when the truth is she is a most powerful female being and utterly Femme, both at once. The two are inseparable as far as I can see. I have not yet met a Femme who is NOT powerfully female.

I have met Femmes who are not powerfully feminine. They are no less Femmes for that.

I have met Femmes who are not glamor girls, nor not High Femmes. They also are not less Femme for that. Truth be told, I strongly suspect most of us are not into the glamor girl look in every day life, yanno?

And that is also me. Femme on me looks female, inescapably so, and I like to think that my energy comes across feminine--but on any given day, I look like a frump or like a country housewife, like a college student or like a harried mom, like a gardener, like an artist, like someone's grandma, like your neighbor down the street. On any given day I look like just another human being of the female variety.

How am I happiest expressing my Femme energy? With a Butch or Transman. I personally need that connection, not just from a partner but from friends. I feel whole as a Femme when there are Butches and Transmen I can connect with, so that the energy makes a complete circuit.

I also need Femme friends. One of the things I have learned over the years is that straight women will not fill this need. There is a bond between Femmes, a way the energy connects which is, for me, not sexual and yet is still vitally important. It takes both Butch/Trans and Femme energy in my life to give me the foundation I need, to be the community which sustains me. It takes my sister Femmes to make me whole as much as it takes my beloved Butches and Transmen.

[Julie]

Originally Posted by Bit

I have found that when a Femme is strong and physically capable, willing and able to tackle "men's work," she is OFTEN told she is not Femme enough, or told she is really a Butch, when the truth is she is a most powerful female being and utterly Femme, both at once. The two are inseparable as far as I can see. I have not yet met a Femme who is NOT powerfully female.

Your words are fluid, Bit... All of them and so much of what you have said, has touched a part of me. The part I quote in particular.

And I cannot agree more, there is a connection among our femme sisters, in which we cannot possibly feel with our straight sisters, at least for me.

Julie

[Bit]

Oh Julie! The part of my post you quoted? It just kills me. The pain I see in a sister Femme's eyes when she is even invisible to her own people, invisible to her own partner... it kills me. We are not paper dolls, not cookie cutter stereotypes. We're humans and as such we are infinitely varied, even within our similarities.

Thank you for your comments, June. You know, I started out the same way, thinking I was a Femme because Butches turned me on and hey, I really DIDN'T want to be with a man, puzzle solved forever, woooohoooo!! But the more I lived it, the more I discussed it, the more I began to see that I was talking about my very self, the core of who I am.

The core of who I am doesn't depend on anyone else. I'm me no matter what.

And yes *grin* the French is confusing me too, lol...

[Puplove]

Originally Posted by Bit

And yes *grin* the French is confusing me too, lol...

[derail]
Awww...sorry...I was being le snarke' but trying to be funny since the thread is a Salon.

P.S. You said "French" huh huh huhuhuhuh

[/derail]

[Arwen]

First, a quick welcome to Boots13. Just so you know, butches are welcome here. I don't want to have a "femmes only" thread (yet, lol.)

To everyone else, thank you so much. I'm crying reading some of you. Others I nod my head because I know that feeling. Then others of you make me laugh (in a good way.)

Thank you for making this Salon a comfortable place to express ourselves in all of our ways that we do!

So I have a third question for us. (Feel free to answer any of the questions or just speak your piece...it's all good.)

THIRD QUESTION: (this is focusing on the art part of the salon description)

Is there a song or painting or book or poem that is your own personal femme motto/manifesto/creed?

Like maybe Gretchen Phillips "Redneck Woman" or Aine Minogue's "Lady of Shallot" for music?

Perhaps Degas Ballerina's or Rosie the Riveter for art?

Maybe Laura Ingalls Wilder or Jo from Little Women is a fiction heroine of yours?

So, do you have one? Do you need one? Do you want one?

[Julie]

Arwen... This most recent question has brought back sweet memories of my youth.

I always knew I was different, from that first kiss at age 12, hiding in the bathroom with Liz Wolf -- The girl who burned her eyelashes off, to void her beauty.

My first exposure to understanding who I was, was when I found the book by Quentin Crisp, albeit, not a female bodied femme, but a femme non-the-less. Quentin wrote his memoir "The Naked Civil Servant," I must have been 17 when I read this, and it opened my eyes, to what the world perhaps had in store for us. When I moved to New York in my early 20's, I looked him up in the phone book and telephoned, thanked him for his gifts, and was invited for tea. He will and always has remained with me in my spirit.

Finally... Who could not resist the words of the brilliant Radclyffe Hall (The Well of Loneliness). Yet another brilliant and strong force in this world of ours. I still have this quote and carry it with me always.

"You're neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you're as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else; only you're unexplained as yet -- you've not got your niche in creation.
~ The Well of Loneliness, 1928 "
— Radclyffe Hall

Let their memories live on within us.

Julie

[Arwen]

Originally Posted by InfiniteFemme

My first exposure to understanding who I was, was when I found the book by Quentin Crisp, albeit, not a female bodied femme, but a femme non-the-less. Quentin wrote his memoir "The Naked Civil Servant," I must have been 17 when I read this, and it opened my eyes, to what the world perhaps had in store for us. When I moved to New York in my early 20's, I looked him up in the phone book and telephoned, thanked him for his gifts, and was invited for tea. He will and always has remained with me in my spirit.

This was so lovely. Thank you very much for sharing! I have not read that book. I'm thinking that I should!

I am so impressed that you met Quentin Crisp. WOW. What was that like? That's so amazing.

And Radclyffe Hall....sigh...I need to reread that. When I was first coming out, a friend handed me two books and told me to read them at the same time. She recommended one chapter of each.

Well of Loneliness and RubyFruit Jungle.

An odd combination to say the least, but they balanced one another quite well. I think if I'd read Well by itself, I might have .... Well who knows what I might have.

[Bit]

Ahh, Arwen, you do ask difficult questions... I thought I couldn't answer this one. Seriously, the only thing I could think of was "lil bit" and that's just patently ridiculous... so I mentioned it to Gryph and Nick. And then a comment Gryph made about Gloria Gaynor's song, "I am Who I Am" made me recognize that I actually DO have something like you're asking about, but it isn't about how to be Femme, exactly.... and it isn't about Gloria Gaynor, either.

Tis Albert, in the Broadway version of La Cage Aux Folles... to that point of the musical, Albert has been nothing but a caricature, "aging queen shallowly seeking after troublesome drama-laden attention."

Then his partner asks him to leave the house while the potential in-laws visit.... and Albert is suddenly revealed as a complex, deep character, vulnerable and deeply hurt, and we realize that the caricature is merely the face he shows to the world to protect his inner being. His defiant, aching, deep understanding of this world and his place in it, of what it takes to claim a place in it, of what it costs to compromise his place in it, is revealed in this one long moment of song--and although he resumes his caricature afterward and maintains it for the rest of the show, WE are changed and can never see him so shallowly again.

THAT version of "I Am Who I Am" has informed my life as a Femme, whether I was living with partners who believed that my being Femme cast them into highly resented "roles" as Butches or whether they believed my being Femme "contaminated" them with too much femininity. That version and the vision of Albert singing it--along with "A Little More Mascara"--sustained me through the long hard years when I was caged myself, living a lie in my mother's folly, desperately aware of my place in the world and what the compromise was costing me.

You could say that the songs are about being queer, not Femme. You could say that they sustained me as a queer being, not specifically as a Femme. You might be right---but me, I cannot separate out "queer" from "Femme" in myself. For me, to be one is to be the other, inescapably so; and that, I think, is the point of the music also, that for Albert, to be queer was to be a performing queen. He could not separate out the two, either.

In some way, those two concepts are the same. The caricature of queerness he presented to everyone may have been the shield and armor that protected his inmost deep and complex being, but it was also his gift to the world, his wryly humorous presentation of a core queer femininity.... and what is lil bit, if not my own wryly humorous version of a core queer femininity?

I am who I am, a queer Femme being coping with an often hostile world, and from Albert I have learned to celebrate every part of that as often as possible and to cling, stubbornly and without apology, to what is truly authentic no matter how I might decide to present it--and no matter how anyone else, even a partner, might receive it.

[Selenay]

Originally Posted by Arwen

THIRD QUESTION: (this is focusing on the art part of the salon description)

Is there a song or painting or book or poem that is your own personal femme motto/manifesto/creed?

They say I'm a beast.
And feast on it. When all along
I thought that's what a woman was.

They say I'm a bitch.
Or witch. I've claimed
the same and never winced.

They say I'm a macha, hell on wheels,
viva-la-vulva, fire and brimstone,
man-hating, devastating,
boogey-woman lesbian.
Not necessarily,
but I like the compliment.

The mob arrives with stones and sticks
to maim and lame and do me in.
All the same, when I open my mouth,
they wobble like gin.

Diamonds and pearls
tumble from my tongue.
Or toads and serpents.
Depending on the mood I'm in.

I like the itch I provoke.
The rustle of rumor
like crinoline.

I am the woman of myth and bullshit.
(True. I authored some of it.)
I built my house of ill repute.
Brick by brick. Labored,
loved and masoned it.

I live like so.
Heart as sail, ballast, rudder, bow.
Rowdy. Indulgent to excess.
My sin and success--
I think of me to gluttony.

By all accounts I am
a danger to society.
I'm Pancha Villa.

I break laws,
upset the natural order,
anguish the Pope and make fathers cry.
I am beyond the jaw of law.
I'm la desperada, most-wanted public enemy.
My happy picture grinning from the wall.

I strike terror among the men.
I can't be bothered what they think.
¡Que se vayan a la ching chang chong!
For this, the cross, the Calvary.
In other words, I'm anarchy.

I'm an aim-well,
shoot-sharp,
sharp-tongued,
sharp-thinking,
fast-speaking,
foot-loose,
loose-tongued,
let-loose,
woman-on-the-loose
loose woman.
Beware, honey.

I'm Bitch. Beast. Macha.
¡Wáchale!
Ping! Ping! Ping!
I break things.

[Arwen]

After moving for most of the day, I have utterly no brain cells left. I just wanted to say that I really love what is happening in this thread. Bit, Albert is one of my faves. Great correlation! Semantics, uh huh! uh huh! Julie, I'm still jealous. Selly, I LOVE that poem! Wow. I need to look her up, don't I!

Anyone can post a question, by the way. I like the ongoing discussions very much.

[blush]

Originally Posted by Arwen

THIRD QUESTION: (this is focusing on the art part of the salon description)

Is there a song or painting or book or poem that is your own personal femme motto/manifesto/creed?

Like maybe Gretchen Phillips "Redneck Woman" or Aine Minogue's "Lady of Shallot" for music?

Perhaps Degas Ballerina's or Rosie the Riveter for art?

Maybe Laura Ingalls Wilder or Jo from Little Women is a fiction heroine of yours?

So, do you have one? Do you need one? Do you want one?

Stone Butch Blues...

[PinkieLee]

Originally Posted by Arwen

So I have a third question for us. (Feel free to answer any of the questions or just speak your piece...it's all good.)

THIRD QUESTION: (this is focusing on the art part of the salon description)

Is there a song or painting or book or poem that is your own personal femme motto/manifesto/creed?

Like maybe Gretchen Phillips "Redneck Woman" or Aine Minogue's "Lady of Shallot" for music?

Perhaps Degas Ballerina's or Rosie the Riveter for art?

Maybe Laura Ingalls Wilder or Jo from Little Women is a fiction heroine of yours?

So, do you have one? Do you need one? Do you want one?

Especially on those days when I'm feeling down or invisible, Maya Angelou's words speak to me, to remind me about the power I have as a woman! Sometimes, I think we all need to be reminded of that, too...

Phenomenal Woman - Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.

I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.

I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.

I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.

I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

[Arwen]

Oh Pinkie! I love Maya Angelou. What a great piece to be inspired by.

[Julie]

Originally Posted by Bit

Oh Julie! The part of my post you quoted? It just kills me. The pain I see in a sister Femme's eyes when she is even invisible to her own people, invisible to her own partner... it kills me. We are not paper dolls, not cookie cutter stereotypes. We're humans and as such we are infinitely varied, even within our similarities.

Open your eyes, do you not see me? How many times I have thought these words... And sadly, these words in my mind have been given life from those who say they have loved me the most. It's so sad really, but what we must learn to do, is open our eyes and see ourselves -- tricky at times, for most of us long to be seen and acknowledged as the beautiful, brilliant and strong femmes we are.

Julie

[Arwen]

Let's be lighthearted for Friday, shall we? This question is for smiles and grins and giffles, I hope.

FOURTH QUESTION: What is the color of lipstick or nailpolish that makes you feel femme or think "gee she's really femme" when you see it on someone else.

[Arwen]

Another discussion question:

What do you do that makes you feel decadently, unabashedly, fabulously femme?

Is it strapping on a dildo?
Is it painting your nails?
Is it fixing a car?
Is it baking a cake?

What is it for you?

[PinkieLee]

Originally Posted by Arwen

Another discussion question:

What do you do that makes you feel decadently, unabashedly, fabulously femme?

Is it strapping on a dildo?
Is it painting your nails?
Is it fixing a car?
Is it baking a cake?

What is it for you?

Honestly for me... it's when I am surrounded by other femmes. Sometimes I feel like everyday life, of living in the sterotypical "lesbian" bubble in my local community, seems to suck my femme mojo. Being around my femme friends and sisters lets my energy shine bright ~ I think that we bring it out in eachother! That is when I feel FABULOUS!

[Medusa]

Now how did I miss this fabulous thread?!

[Arwen]

Originally Posted by Medusa

Now how did I miss this fabulous thread?!

I made it for YOU and see how you are! You never call. You never write. You never lend me your clothes. You never lend me your husband... or your dog even!

[Lillie]

Originally Posted by InfiniteFemme

Open your eyes, do you not see me? How many times I have thought these words... And sadly, these words in my mind have been given life from those who say they have loved me the most. It's so sad really, but what we must learn to do, is open our eyes and see ourselves -- tricky at times, for most of us long to be seen and acknowledged as the beautiful, brilliant and strong femmes we are.

Julie

Only halfway through this thread but I am stuck in the gut by these two posts.. I AM NOT INVISIBLE and I am/was treated as such...Loved by those who never saw me!..so hard for anyone to understand those words unless you .. like me have been standing there as they walk right through you!..I cried myself to sleep for far to long..questioning why I wasnt what she/hy use to see anymore..when did I put on the cloak of invisibility? Was it given to me or did I find it on my own..I found myself safe in a place that I was never seen. Ya I hear/heard "I love you baby"..but who exactly was she/hy speaking to? not me!..at me..not to me..words that bound me to stay..fear of being alone kept me..and then always falling into the mindset of "oh this isn't so bad, I have a nice house and a tolerable life.." how do you find your way out of that? how do you become visable again? How do you without feeling selfish in your choice? she/hy is quite content to live this way..no passion, no desire.. I N V I S A B I L I T Y. is NOT a superpower..it is the opposite..it rendered/s me powerLESS..I am not very articulate in my posts because I type as I think..so sorry for that lol..It was a tuff place to be..but fear kept me..common sense made me leap!..and It was fabulous!

As far as femme identity.. I have always been feminine to the extreme..at least thats what they told me..I do not like to get my hands/fingernails dirty..but I have no problem getting my freak on after mudbogging!. BUT.its by choice lol..I prefer to stay clean and proper for hym..but hy doesnt always want me that way either..Im flawed just like every other human..male or female that walks this earth..but being femme for me..It is who I am not what I am..Yes I get a mani/pedi..yes I love to be pampered by hym..but I am just as comfortable in my good ole "come fuck me pumps" as I am in my pink flip flops!..I wear a baseball cap to hide a bad hair day lol..and I take extra time to to fix my hair when I wnt..I am quite capable of running to the store w/o makeup on..althought this is not my preferred way..I am a mother and I work and I do live in the REAL world where not everythingis perfect.. .I believe at least for me ..its in my manurisms..I think standing next to any butch it is very obvious how my community will identify me.because most people need that..I identify with it because It really is who I am..I am FEMMenine woman who likes.the contrast between the feminine and masculine woman it is a huge turn on for me..its what makes me always take that second look at a fine looking butch..Their dynamic is sexy and appealing and confident!..

People who don't like lables are not wrong or incorrect for thinking they dont..but for me..I am indifferent..I don't really care..
after all I do have a bumper sticker that reads "you say im a bitch like its a bad thing" HEY i have earned it lol..so..peace out on that!

and I do also agree with the femme sister thingy!...I have a few straight female friends..but I am most comfortable in my own community with my gay friends..its an unspoken understanding..and half the time with my straight friends it turns into Gay lessons 101..it can be exhausting explaing any dynamic..lol

sorry for this ridiculously long post..I love coming here and totally being me..as random as I am..

I love my life..more each day!
Lillie