Salon de Femme--aut delectare aut prodesse est

[Arwen]

From Wikipedia:

A salon is a gathering of intellectual, social, political, and cultural elites under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation. These gatherings often consciously following Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate" ("aut delectare aut prodesse est"). The salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical salons of the 17th century and 18th century, were carried on until quite recently in urban settings among like-minded people of a 'set': many 20th-century salons could be instanced.

Now, I don't know that we are the cultural elite, but I do know that we amuse and inspire one another by our similarities and differences.

Let's use this thread as a way to gather with one another and learn from one another.

I'm sure we will have other threads pop up for sporty femmes and high femmes and femmes with high heels and femmes in sneakers. How about we make this thread a place to welcome one another in all our guises of femme?

We can throw out questions for discussions and move from there. Sound good?

First question:

So if femme is a label, what does that label look like on you? Not what do you think that label should look like, but how do you express the uniqueness of being femme in our community?

P.to the S. Any one of us can pitch a question so please do. Answer the ones you like. Ignore the ones you don't.

So come to the Salon! There's tea, coffee, wine, cosmos and more at the virtual bar. Food too.

[IrishGrrl]

Oh lordy...you mentioned cocktails..Pinkie will be here realllllllll soon!

[Arwen]

I know, right? So jump in! What does femme look like on you, darlin'?

[IrishGrrl]

Oh! Femme on me looks like...........whatever the cat dragged in at this very moment. LOL I stayed up ALL night...for some reason. My head is banging away, and my eyes they are a burnin'.

I'll be back later this evening, and by that time hopefully femme will look a helluva lot better on ME!


Pass the wine sister!

[Arwen]

LOLOLOL

Femme on me usually looks like no makeup and comfy clothes. So I'm good with what the cat drug in.

No more wine for me today. I had plenty last night!

[PinkieLee]

Did someone mention cocktails?! hahaha

Arwen, the Salon de Femme is a fabulous idea! What better way to come together by celebrating our differences and basking in our similarities. Femme bonding is so good for the soul...

[Princess4u]

Originally Posted by Arwen

I know, right? So jump in! What does femme look like on you, darlin'?

well...femme to me isnt a label...but a descriptor of me...like saying i have green eyes a pretty smile and I am femme...I am proud of this description of me...i honour it and adore it...it IS me...it is who and what I am. You couldnt really describe me without saying I am femme.

[blush]

Originally Posted by Arwen

First question:

So if femme is a label, what does that label look like on you? Not what do you think that label should look like, but how do you express the uniqueness of being femme in our community?

Eh, it's not a label for me. It's not really my gender either. It just is, yanno. And it looks pretty damn tired today!

[Puplove]

Merde! Maintenant je dois apprendre le français!

Je suis femme, donc femme, c'est moi.

Où est le champagne?

Amour de Chien

[Selenay]

Originally Posted by Arwen

First question:

So if femme is a label, what does that label look like on you? Not what do you think that label should look like, but how do you express the uniqueness of being femme in our community?

P.to the S. Any one of us can pitch a question so please do. Answer the ones you like. Ignore the ones you don't.

The femme label is stamped right on my ass so that if you don't like it, you don't have to go far to kiss it. You can see it in the heels I buy but never wear, you can see it in my hair--especially when my hair is frizzy and untamed.

My femme looks like a "What-Are-You-Lookin-At-Asshole?" smirk, and like a quirked eyebrow. My femme oozes sexuality and humour. Half the sugar, twice the spice.

My femme is the kind that people laugh at when I comment about crying over a broken nail, but the kind that can be counted on to pick you up when you're down.

I live like so.

[Arwen]

Originally Posted by blush

Eh, it's not a label for me. It's not really my gender either. It just is, yanno. And it looks pretty damn tired today!

I have to admit that I've never grasped the concept of femme as a gender. But if it is not a label for you and it is not a gender, what is it?

Originally Posted by Puplove

Merde! Maintenant je dois apprendre le français!

Je suis femme, donc femme, c'est moi.

Où est le champagne?

Amour de Chien

Danged show off. Yes, we are helping you keep up your French lessons. Can you tell us more about what is and isn't femme to you? Booze is on the bar. And I love the Puplove too.

I have no idea how wrong or right I am. lol

Originally Posted by Selenay

My femme is the kind that people laugh at when I comment about crying over a broken nail, but the kind that can be counted on to pick you up when you're down.

I live like so.

And this was a FABULOUS manifesto, Selly. Really liked this.

I love that we are all here and we are all so different in how we approach this question!

[Puplove]

Originally Posted by Arwen

Danged show off. Yes, we are helping you keep up your French lessons. Can you tell us more about what is and isn't femme to you? Booze is on the bar. And I love the Puplove too.

I have no idea how wrong or right I am. lol

I have an idea on how wrong you are....you are just....wrong. I am just....kidding. Hooker.

I said I am femme; femme means me - or something like that. I could be saying my mother is a sausage.

To me femme is who I am - more than a gender, it is an orientation that transcends queer. Is femme defined by being the counterpart to butch? I think in some ways it does, the same way lesbian defines as being the match for another lesbian...??? But it means much more than that - it is an awareness of self, a strength, an existence that is much more powerful than being a female because I earned my place by working toward, growing into and proudly taking ownership of the mix of loving butch, being girly and being strong and capable all at once. And femme does not necessarily include "girly" because the power and strength of femme is defining who you are by what is right for you. And being loved and appreciated for it. And it could mean owning the proud title hooker.

Comprenez-vous? Le hee hee hee

[Arwen]

Originally Posted by Puplove

To me femme is who I am - more than a gender, it is an orientation that transcends queer. Is femme defined by being the counterpart to butch? I think in some ways it does, the same way lesbian defines as being the match for another lesbian...??? But it means much more than that - it is an awareness of self, a strength, an existence that is much more powerful than being a female because I earned my place by working toward, growing into and proudly taking ownership of the mix of loving butch, being girly and being strong and capable all at once. And femme does not necessarily include "girly" because the power and strength of femme is defining who you are by what is right for you. And being loved and appreciated for it. And it could mean owning the proud title hooker.

Comprenez-vous? Le hee hee hee

You hit on something I was thinking about on my drive home.

Am I femme because I am attracted to butch energy.

And my end thought was no/yes. No, I am not femme simply because I am attracted to butches. Yes, I am femme because butches just do it for me. But I would still be femme even if there were no butches in the world.

I'd just be lonelier, but still femme. I would not change who I am.

[Arwen]

Question du Jour:Who inspires you? This is not about femme per se but then again it is. Who inspires you to be the woman that you are?

Is it someone you know? Is it a relative? Is it an author? An artist?

Perhaps it is none of that but something else.

So tell the Salon de Femme.

Who inspires you?

[blush]

Originally Posted by Arwen

And my end thought was no/yes. No, I am not femme simply because I am attracted to butches. Yes, I am femme because butches just do it for me. But I would still be femme even if there were no butches in the world.

We all hate it when we are reduced down to who we fuck. And it happens so often to femmes in a way that it doesn't to butches/trans. Too often, our "femme-ness" is automatically tied to which type of masculine energy we prefer. It is so debasing.

For me, femme is my descriptor for my energy.

[Semantics]

This is a great topic and I've really enjoyed reading everyone's contributions so far.

Originally Posted by Arwen

You hit on something I was thinking about on my drive home.

Am I femme because I am attracted to butch energy.

And my end thought was no/yes. No, I am not femme simply because I am attracted to butches. Yes, I am femme because butches just do it for me. But I would still be femme even if there were no butches in the world.

I'd just be lonelier, but still femme. I would not change who I am.

I hate to define myself as I relate to another person, but I've often wondered how much of the femme in me is in part defined by my deep need for a certain kind of counterpart.

But, as you said, I would still be femme if there were no butches in the world.


It took me a long time to embrace the identity of femme. To decide and feel for myself what the term actually meant to me personally.
In the beginning, I had to take "femme" and separate it from everything I despise about how society in general uses emphasized femininity to perpetuate male domination over women. That was a personal struggle.

Somehow my life inside the queer community made me feel powerful enough to embrace my femme self and to define myself in a way that I'm comfortable with. I think, in part, it was being around butches who also thumbed their noses at society’s norms. It was also from being around other femmes who took the power to define for themselves. Here, in this community, I don’t have to reject the girlyness that makes me feel less powerful in broader society. Here, being a femme doesn’t assign me to a lower status.

Being a femme has given me the power to be as feminine on the outside as I feel on the inside and not feel disadvantaged.

I'm a femme in my little black dress.
I'm a femme in my soccer mom get up.
I'd still be a femme if I decided to dress up in my lover's men's jeans, boots, and button up flannel shirts.

[Julie]

Originally Posted by Arwen

First question:
So if femme is a label, what does that label look like on you? Not what do you think that label should look like, but how do you express the uniqueness of being femme in our community?

When I came out at the age of 17 (1979), my first love was butch... However, her definition of femme for me, was to be her punching bag, until I was strong enough to not withstand her beatings any longer... This little girl femme broke that big butches jaw, and from that point on, I swore -- Butches were BAD! If butches looked like this to me, what did I as a femme look like to them? I was young, oh so young and thankfully grew within myself to know, femme has many descriptors, as does butch.

Today... I rejoice in the simplest forms of my femme self. Throughout the years, I have lived and loved both butches (soft and oh so hard) and (save me) a femme, and still I remained the femme I am. Regardless of the clothes I wear, or the makeup upon my face, or who I shared my bed with. My gender is femme, my home is that as a lesbian in my community of gay/lesbian/transgender/bi-sexual and my body is that of a woman.

What a great place Arwen... Thank you for opening the dialogue.

Julie

[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...