OK, so I haven’t posted anything in a while, I’m having a bit of a “block” with this blog. Lots of ideas running though my head, however I’m not sure if I feel they are worth posting. I’ve bought the book “Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity”, perhaps that will give me some juice to work with. For now however, MORE LINGERIE LINKS!!! (b/c you can never have too many).

www.mayahansen.com
www.kissmedeadly.co.uk
www.brands.petite-coquette.co.uk

Episode 5

So yes, I watch “A Shot at Love 2 with Tila Tequila”, and my favorite is Lisa Rizzo. She’s not my type in real life, but DAMMIT she’s hot to watch…sexy, sexy baby. I hope she wins, ’cause that kiss at elimination was the best kiss I’ve seen so far out of both seasons. That kiss topped a Dani kiss, and that’s saying A LOT for me. Episode 5 has to be about the best episode of the season 2.

High Femme— 1. Exhibits hyper-femininity which may manifest itself outwardly in appearance, and inwardly as a a celebration of femininity.(butch-femme.com) 2. High femmes are femmes who intentionally and consistently embrace and express femininity past the point that most straight women do. She’s so high femme, she’s sometimes mistaken for a drag queen. (urbandictionary.com)

Amber Hollibaugh:

You know that if you’re doing high femme, your femininity is highly made up. Femmes make it happen in a way that is not at all natural– it is real, but it is not natural. As a femme, you have made decisions about how you will appear as a gendered person. And when you are doing it, you don’t take a deep breath and say, “Ah, I’m finally me.” Instead you go, “Ha I finally look the way I like a girl who isn’t a girl looks.” When I look at drag queens–that’s how I see myself–I like looking like a drag queen. It matters to me that I look that way. When I look to and identify with that construction, I am also transgendered.
…When you design girl-ness, when you make up the way you are female, that’s a transgendered experience. I think that transgendered hasn’t been mapped or named in the same way for femmes. That has bothered me because there is that transgendered aspect of high femme-ness that isn’t about the erotic relationship, that isn’t in relation to butches. –Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, and Bad Girls

High Femme:
www.amandafailureprincess.com
www.creativexicana.blogspot.com

Sites:
www.dramaqueenstyle.com
www.cutesygirl.com
www.greatsockz.com
www.becheeky.com
www.fashionderek.com

Using traditional storytelling and nontraditional verse to chronicle the course of love returning in the lifetimes of one woman-loving-woman named bull-dog-jean, the bull-jean stories give cultural documentation and social commentary on African-American herstory and survival. Set in the rural South of the 1920s, the bull-jean stories herald the spirit of African-American people.

“for my daughter/myself and all my mothers
i need a witness that we were here and our Lives mattered…”
— sharon bridgforth

“Bridgforth created the bull-dog-jean character ‘in celebration of the fierce Black bulldaggas that have gone before.’ Set in the rural South of the 1920s, these stories are infused with a mother tongue that will work its magic on you, transporting you in time and place. …Here the rhythm and the flow of the words and the dialect come together as if in song. These jazzy poetic riffs need to be read aloud… Bridgforth’s language begs to be heard.”—Debra Hiers, Southern Voice

“The bull-jean stories are a tantalizing blend of poetry and performance art that sings and dances across the page. The oral tradition that has kept Black culture alive informs the phrasing, melody and rhythms of each of these pieces and invites the reader to listen as well as read. Surrender to the jazzy/bluesy riffs here and you’ll come away singing.”— JEWELLE GOMEZ, author of Don’t Explain

www.redbonepress.com

Felicia Luna Lemus

by Stephanie Arwen Lynch

What is a femme? I don’t know. I can tell you what I mean when I say I am a femme – in particular a stone femme. There are a multitude of ways to define femme and stone femme. This is merely how I set my own personal boundaries up around the definition of stone femme as it applies to me and me only. It is not your definition because I do not know you.

Let me start with this. I am a femme who can’t balance a check book, change a flat, change my oil, OR lift heavy boxes. I am a femme who can top a dog, bird or cat by voice alone. I am a femme who is a lady and a dame and a bitch. I am a femme who doesn’t care if my definition of femininity doesn’t match yours. I do not define myself by your standards nor will I define you by mine. It’s the quality of femme that I am about — not the quantity.

Now what about the modifier of “stone” to my femme? In some communities “stone” means “very” as in extremely. So that would work for me because I am exceedingly femme in appearance. But the way I use “stone” is a sexual connotation. In that sense I have boundaries that are set in stone that I will not cross.

I do not relate to my partner’s body as though it were female. I do not go down on a woman but I do engage in oral sex with a butch who is packing/strapping/whatever you want to call it. I call the women I date bois or men or fellas or guys or whatever they like. I use masculine pronouns easily and often. I do this at their preference, by the way, not mine. Again, I will not force someone to fit my world view.

I AM attracted to females however the females I am attracted to express themselves and their sexuality in a masculine way. They may pass as men intentionally, unintentionally or not at all. Their energy is male, masculine, gender neutral, not feminine.

This is why I don’t call myself a lesbian any more. This is it exactly. This apparent need to define lesbian by sexual attraction is one I can not subscribe.

It seems that for many who id as lesbian or think they know what lesbian is that one needs to like girl parts? Like attracts Like. Female-ID butches are fabulous folk. Male-ID butches are what turn my head. For me it is that male energy housed in a non-typical host that attracts me. That, for me, is what creates the energy that I am most attracted to. I adore bringing it out in him. I adore seeing it respond to my femininity. It enhances, accentuates, bolsters who and what I am.

I spent years in relationships trying to please my partners and failing miserably. At least THREE of them have stories to tell of me falling asleep at key moments. Others will tell you of my non-reciprocity. I had lovers who COUNTED the times I reciprocated with them in an “acceptable to them” fashion. By that I mean specifically the act of cunnilingus. This was used against me to tell me what a bad lesbian I was. I spent nearly 20 years trying to be the right kind of lesbian for each of them. It wasn’t until I met a stone butch that I discovered what the problem had been.

I’m not a lesbian! Or at least I am not sexually a lesbian. Emotionally and spiritually I am. But sexually I am a stone femme. It was incredibly freeing to me. To realize that there were butches out there who might actually get me — understand me — not judge my sexual prowess based on lesbian sexual standards. I discovered that I am a pretty darn good lover after all.

To put it very bluntly, it squicks me to go “there” with a woman. Maybe this is because I was raped by a woman. I don’t know. I just know that it physically turns my stomach. I now get it when friends gag about blowjobs. So to be quite specific–

• Penetration - from me? No, no and NO!
• Penetration - of me? Yes, yes please, thank you more!
• Cunnilingus - from me? OH HECK NO
• Fellatio - from me? yes thank you
• (knowing the difference? priceless)

It’s hard for someone who hasn’t been there to conceptualize much less understand how demeaning and downright damaging it is to live your life thinking that you are just a lousy lay… that you are selfish and self-centered and a pillow princess…that you wouldn’t know good sex if it jumped up and bit you in the rear.

It hurts to think of all those years wasted because I didn’t have the audacity to say what I liked and didn’t like. It hurts to think of all the time I wasted for my lovers who didn’t get what they wanted either.

Now that I know exactly what I want I will never settle for anything less than what I deserve.

So here’s to having the ability to define myself according to my own definitions, limits and boundaries. I am fortunate. I am able to live as who I want to be. The community that doesn’t accept me is simply no longer my community. Does that make me sad? Yes. Does it make me angry? Sometimes. But I will never go back to being someone I am not.

While you have a right to believe anything you like about me in the privacy of your own thoughts, nothing gives you that right to label me with anything other than what I tell you I am. You can not define another human being without their express permission and input.

So that is my definition of what it means when I say I am a Stone Femme.Perhaps the best generic definition of any one is “someone who knows themselves well.” ID is fluid. ID is what we make of it. My ID of stone may or may not be yours.

Sarah Bleviss
Sarah Bleviss is a queer femme visual artist working primarily in photography, new media, and mixed media.
Sarah has been fascinated by new media since adolescence when she developed her first website in 1995 which received recognition in Teen Magazine shortly thereafter. From 1997 to 2004 she designed and produced one of the longest running webcam sites on the internet. Her epic + amorphous new media project has had many incarnations from feminist outreach resouce center to a progressive blog to an experiment in eroticism, exhibitionism, and entrepreneurship. Additionally, Sarah operated numerous blogs, web portals, community sites, and subsidiary projects from 1997 to present.
She currently works as a freelance web designer and new media producer, works for $pread Magazine and with various social justice and arts organizations. Sarah also loves the first amendment, cats (she has two), architecture, and Victorian and Edwardian aesthetics. She resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Nicky Click!!!
Nicky Click is a producer, beat maker, video artist, songwriter and performance artist. I’m On My Cell Phone is her sophomore album out on Olympia, WA label Crunks Not Dead Records. The album is a mix of original catchy electro-pop dance music that you can truly move your body to. The songs not only have memorable hooks, but tell a diary-like story of her life and experience as a queer femme and feminist. Having started out in the Olympia, WA queercore scene four years ago, Nicky Click now resides in New Hampshire where she grew up…

“Nicky Click is my new favorite discovery! I will never forget the image of her in her stripey unitard, bouncing around on stage singing and reciting her feel-good, feminist retro-80s new wave pop. ‘I Wanna Excercise’ is my new favorite song!!” – Curve Magazine