Filed Under: Sassafras, Writing Prompts
Written on: September 1, 2010
Femme feels like….
Write about what femme as a gender or expression feels like to you. This could be how it literally feels, or something more metaphorical…
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Written on: August 31, 2010
Sugar is a synonym for love and affection. As in, my grandma saying, “come here and give me some sugar” as soon as I enter her house. Sugar is used as a reward for good behavior… we give sugar to our children when they’ve earned it and we give it to ourselves when we deserve a treat. Sometimes we even withhold sugar from ourselves when we’ve been bad. Sugar is also a pet name for our beloveds. If you’re a Southern femme, you might call just about anybody “sugar” – Northerners just don’t get it. They get offended because you’ve called them what they see as a term of endearment when there has been no rapport established. What they don’t know is that they’re nobody special. As far as you’re concerned, everybody’s “sugar” until proven guilty. Sugar is the default. If you don’t want sugar in your coffee, usually you have to specify that. Sugar is novel: have you seen the new retro soft drinks made with *gasp!* real sugar? Sugar (along with fat) strikes fear into the hearts of those who may care a little too much about their weight. Sugar comforts us when we are sad, celebrates with us when we are happy. Addiction to sugar can cause lifelong wellness issues such as type 2 Diabetes. I speak from experience! For me, too much sugar in a short period of time can cause mood swings. I cannot count the number of times I have crashed – HARD – after a delicious ice cream cone or a delightful breakfast of strawberry crepes. Or a sugared coffee drink. Or a soft drink. Or a couple of cookies and milk.
Whew. Whether or not you’ve struggled with weight / wellness / body image issues, I’d bet real money that you have or have had an ambivalent relationship to sugar. As I have been starting to take better care of myself, I have had to change the way I think about food – especially about sugar. Food is food, nutrition, fuel for our bodies and nothing else. Sugar is a component of some foods. It is neither a reward, nor a punishment. It is neither good nor bad. Sugar itself is only harmful if we misuse it or use it excessively. The hard part is that there is no singular standard for how much sugar one should consume on a daily basis. It is different for everyone, and we would do well to practice listening to our bodies so that we can determine how much is too much, too little and just enough. Because I am diabetic, I can usually have very little sugar. Most of the time, sugar is reserved for when I have made poor dietary choices for the day. I forgot to eat. I didn’t bring a healthy snack. I don’t want to go out to eat, but I can’t get home in time to prevent a low blood glucose episode. When I eat sugary foods, usually it means I have done something wrong. Somehow I have failed to properly care for myself. Either I ate too much or I failed to eat enough. Things should not be this way.
Personally, I don’t like assignments from blogs that I read in my leisure time. Work and school give me enough of that. With that said, won’t you humor me and spend a little bit of time thinking about your own relationship to sugar and sweets? How has sugar affected your self image? What can you do to equalize the power imbalance between you and sugar? What patterns of thinking do you need to alter so that food is not a reward or a punishment, but rather sustenance for your body to be able to function at it’s peak? Is there anyone you need to talk to about this subject? Do you need to confront parents, friends, coworkers about their influence on your relationship to food? Instead of direct confrontation, perhaps you can arm yourself with some simple, memorable responses to controversial beliefs about sweets and sugar. Take action, even if you only spend a minute or two in thought. I believe this is important.
With all that said, I’m going to tell you some ways that you can dress up your sugar bowl. I have found that adding flavor to my sugar helps me to be satisfied with less of it in my food. Some visitors to my kitchen have made fun of how many jars of sugar I keep: granulated sugar, light brown sugar, dark brown sugar, confectioner’s sugar, agave nectar, honey, molasses…. hey, a baker’s got to have a wide range of ingredients! Under the category of white granulated sugar, I have several flavor variations (with more in mind!) that I think you’ll enjoy.
This isn’t a recipe, there is nothing to measure, but if you’d like to flavor your sugars naturally, try sticking one or two items from the following list into your sugar jar. Or in five different containers of sugar. Who’s counting?
Whole cinnamon stick
Whole vanilla bean
Star anise
Whole nutmeg, allspice, cloves or any pumpkin pie spices
Fresh mint leaves
Slices of ginger
Orange, lemon or lime zest
Dried fruit such as raisins, cranberries, plums or apricots
Other fresh fruits sliced very thinly (strawberries? peaches?)
Chocolate, just a couple of chunks!
For wet stuff, the sugar will actually preserve the fruit, but it’s important to check it frequently and refrigerate if it’s making you nervous. Right now I have one jar with cinnamon and vanilla that smells absolutely divine, as well as one with lemon and orange rind. Whenever I cook with citrus, I always zest it first before cutting it up. Why throw away perfectly good zest? You can also fish out the candied zest to use in recipes. I topped a zucchini bread with candied orange zest once. Mhhmmmh!!
So you’re wondering why on earth I just went on a rant about my problematic relationship to sugar and then told you how to flavor your sugar bowl. My point is this: for folks who agree that sugar is great when used in moderation (whatever amount is moderate for the individual), you might as well have damn good tasting sugar. Savor it. Snuggle it. Declare your love for it for as long as it lasts. Just do it in a way that is loving to your body, mind, and spirit.
P.S. I know you’ve heard me talk about NuStevia, and it’s because it’s the most amazing natural zero calorie sweetener ever. Most stevia is dis-gust-ing. I’m not getting paid to tell you this, I just want more people to be able to take advantage of this non-bitter, non-yucky, non-sugar sweetener. Start with just a little bit and gradually work up to the level of sweetness you prefer. Heck, combine it with one of these yummy flavored sugars. You’ll hardly notice a difference and you’ll be saving yourself GOBS of calories that can be “spent” on foods of exponentially greater nutritional value. I honestly believe that switching to stevia (rather than a chemical low calorie sweetener) has been one of my biggest assets as I have pursued health and wellness this year. If it’s not for you, please try your favorite drinks and other foods with no sweetener at all – there are many things that I prefer with no sugar, no stevia, no nothing because I have come to appreciate the pure, unaltered flavor. I drink to your health, my darlings!
Filed Under: Guest, Writing Prompts
Written on: August 26, 2010
This post comes to you by Christine Bylund of Words and Flesh, also on twitter as @kittinvittamin, who responded to our August Writing Prompt. We love to feature guest posts and if you have a post you would like to see here don’t hesitate to contact us (femmesguide AT gmail.com).
I thought this would be tricky, that I would only come up with femmes of fiction when trying to find a femme role model. There was also a pressure of uniqueness that hindered me from expressing myself at first There have been a couple of drafts of this until I realized that sometimes what we try to find far away we can only find if we look closely.
My femme role model could have been Minnie Mouse or some Victorian outspoken woman of choice. But it is the first person that ever taught me what fighting was, and art, and hair dye. Her name is G and she is a visual artist. Last year she turned seventy and I held a speech at her party. My dress looked good, my pearls looked good, my red curls were vibrant, and she looked good too. Her jewelry shone, her bright red fringe glowed, and her eyeliner was perfectly applied in ways I could never have been able to…
She had told my mother this story when I was still a little girl a girl madly in love with all things light pink and purple, of Piglet in Winnie the Pooh and staging complex relationship intrigues with my Barbies. My mother told the story to me later, it was as if G had known, that I would face what she had already. All life lived crippled is hard, all life lived cripfemme even more so, so my mother told me, when I had transferred the pink in my wardrobe to red and black…
G had gone for her first driving lesson. Of course in her electric wheelchair and of course with a PA with her, and the driving instructor had said…
“Who did your make up?”
“I did it myself” she said,” I am an artist!”
Slowly he had closed his mouth and mumbled
“Then I am sure this will be no problem for you…”
You see, for me the way her spasmodic hands draw a perfect pitch black line on the top of her eyelids is resistance. The way she insists on dying her hair and wearing heels with her wheels is bravery. And she taught me to always look to other shores, to never be satisfied and to practice, practice, practice…
…not so much at walking straight or shedding my crutches and walkers, but at drawing straight pitch black lines under my eyes and making little kicks in the corners of them, so that I would look like a cat. She taught me that nothing is impossible – not even the rows and rows of buttons on my favorite high neck blouses – and if they are, ask others to do them up. A crip appearance is not dull by default and cripfemme femme-ininity is as much of a mind-fuck as you ever want it to be.
I think of her in whatever I do, she taught me the art of observing, noting and using what happened around me to create other worlds than this one. She inspired me to think consciously of my body and my appearance, and how it affects me and others.
She taught me that intellectual fierceness and appreciations for all things pretty can and shall be combined. She taught me to make way for others, as she made way for me.
I don’t know if she would see herself as cripfemme, but she was my first ever notion of what that could be at all. That crip didn’t have to be about sweatpants and monotonic exercise in smelly gyms, but it could be about exhibitions and color-schemes, and the force of fantasies.
I hope I will make way for little shivering Piglet-like crip girls, like she made way for me. I hope one day mothers and fathers will tell their kids stories of resistance about me.
It is not only for myself that I fight to crush assumptions of all things femme and crip and girlie. It is because she made a path for me, plowed it up with her electric wheelchair and I must scrape it ripe again with my own stiff steps so that little cripfemmelets can trot happily after me.
Thank you G, for showing me that disability never hindered you, for always wearing that over the top green eye shadow and that madly red hair. When I grow older I hope I will be like you and the lime light will glisten in the chrome of my walker and my eyeliner lines will be even and straight.
Thank you for teaching me how to fight. All art is fighting, all fighting is life.
Filed Under: Sassafras
Written on: August 25, 2010
When I first began thinking about who I would write about as a femme role model or inspiration I immediately thought of the great femme authors: Dorothy Allison, Joan Nestle, Amber Hollibaugh who gave words and truth and metaphor to my femme gender, to my femme desires. I was going to write about how finding those books and those stories really helped to sculpt the nuance and voice of my femme identity. I paused though because I know I’ve written about the importance of these authors in my life before, and I thought this time I’d look a bit deeper.
There is no denying that the first femme I met, who then in her own way became an inspiration and role model for the ways I would build my own gender, hated me.
I was eighteen and had just moved to the South. It was a week after graduating high school, nine months after being kicked out of my family, and three weeks after meeting my first butch lover at a queer conference in DC. L. was fierce and strong, and she knew it. She knew how to fuck, and fight, and make a home. In so many ways se was who I hoped to emulate (minus the drama that seemed to always swirl under her scuffed pumps and combat boots) when years later I came out a femme.
L. was the ex-wife of the butch I moved there for. It was one of those dramatic situations that seemed romantic and intoxicating at the time, but that drama is not the point of this story.
L. existed flawlessly in a world of bois and drag queens. She’d lost more minimum wage jobs than she could count when a lover would pick her up. Still she kept her head up, kept strong and unwilling to compromise or be closeted in any way. She wore out riot grrrl cassettes in the beat up stereo of her car, and tattooed stars all over her body. L was no saint. She had a train wreck of a temper and you didn’t want to cross that grrl when she was mad. But she’d also fight with words or fists for any one of her people if the moment necessitated.
Once we were at the mall and J- her ex husband, my boifriend (see I told you dramatic) lost his packer right in the middle of the Jacksonville Mall’s food court. It somehow slipped out of his briefs and down the leg of his pants. We stood there for seconds that felt like hours unsure what to do, when she reached down her manicured fingers picked it up and tucked it safely into her purse. She didn’t look down, didn’t turn red. L stared every one of those teenagers, good old boys, and Southern Baptist housewives in the eye daring them to say a word as she steered us out of the food court and into Victoria Secret so she could try on lingerie.
I have no idea what happened to L. After three months in Jacksonville I moved back to Oregon, started testosterone and began living as a tranny fag. I remember hearing rumors that she’d planned on moving back to Tallahassee.
Wherever she is, I hope she’s happy. I hope she’s still fighting and I hope she has a butch who really deserves and cherishes her. For years when I thought of “femme” I immediately thought of her. We obviously hadn’t been close, yet when I came out as femme she was where I took my inspiration. Those flickering memories of her southern punk, riot grrrl, rebel girl, princess style of femme that became a role model for me.
Filed Under: Essin' Em
Written on: August 24, 2010
It’s hard for me to talk about who my femme role models are and were, because I didn’t really have any. The word Femme was foreign to me until my early 20s, and was uttered to me about me by a at-the-time-butch-identified-tiger-in-the-sack-who-is-now-a-handsome-guy.
So actually, none of my role models have been Femmes, at least not the ones who have made the biggest impact. They’ve actually been a variety of people on the trans-masucline end of the gender spectrum. They’ve included Sinclair Sexsmith, who was the person I turned to after the above incident, to get a better idea of what meant, who admired them, and more. Sinclair wrote about femmes, talked to me about femmes, and when I would be in the same area as Sinclair, my femme-ness came out even more in response.
Then there was J…my at-the-time-genderqueer-and-trans-identified-masculine-partner-who-has-now-re-come-out-as-a-femme. J was very masculine, and more over, J was a femme lover. I mean, some of it is the clothes, but I don’t wear heels often, and at the time, I almost never wore lipstick. It didn’t matter. Once, when I was wearing a 50′s style dress, and walked into the room with some femme-i-tude, J’s mouth just dropped, and I was stared at for a few seconds. Then, in a blink, J was under my skirt eating me out. That helped me to realize my femme power, and sometimes, as I like to call it, my femme wiles.
Meeting with and talking to other femmes has helped too. I get reinforcement that there is no “right’ way to be femme. At the AEE/AVN show in Vegas last January, I sat at a table with a few other femmes; Dylan Ryan, Courtney Trouble, and some lovely ladies from Good For Her in Canada. We were all femmes (minus Jiz, who played out Genderqueer straight man if you will…it made sense in my head), but each of us had a very different interpretation of what “Femme” meant to us. I realized, yet again, that Femme is in the eye of the beholder. It’s a very concious gender presentation, but it is not soley defined, and definitely not always defined by feminine.
Ivan Coyote had a spoken word piece on the net a few months ago…a thank you to Femmes. Hearing it, and watching it, I was brought to tears. I have been there. So much of what he said is me. It’s reassuring my partner(s) that their gender is perfect, whatever it may be. It is figuring out sex with someone without pronouns, a cock or a cunt. It’s freezing my ass off because god-damn-it this dress looks good and I want people to see it. It’s buying lingerie that I may never wear in front of a partner, because *I* look good in it, and that matters to me. It’s matching my sex toy collection to my wardrobe.
It is so many things, and most of these things I’ve discovered and embaced not from other femmes (although they’ve reinforced it), but from friends, partners, authors, and performers who love and admire femmes. And to all of you, I say thank you.
Filed Under: Radium, Writing Prompts
Written on: August 23, 2010
It’s funny to me, when I hear the words “femme role model”… the first person I think of is actually a butch. The first butch I ever met, the first person who made me want to express myself in a way that made sense to myself, not to the androstandards that I had, that very night, been told by older lesbians who were supposed to be ‘taking care of me’.
Of course that was the night I met my first butch—a word I didn’t even know to use at the time, but that later I knew was the only way to describe the much older, chivalrous dyke. The only one who didn’t try to give me lessons on cutting my nails short to send ‘signals’, or to say that wearing clothes from the boy’s section was an excellent way to pick up the ladies, and, obviously, that my long hair needed to go. Granted, she didn’t tell me how to be femme, either, but at the time she was glimpse over the andro-dyke iron curtain I didn’t even know I’d been living behind. She obviously wasn’t a femme role model, but she’s the first person who cracked open the door to allowing myself to be femme.
The person who helped bring me out as femme, that came later. I had only met one other femme before her, and I’d always thought of that sparkly femme identity as something beyond my reach, that was just her.
Then I met the first femme I knew who used the word femme without fear. She and I went shopping together for things I never thought I’d wear… skirts, dresses, lace, heels. It took me a long time to go from helping her pick things to trying them on myself to actually buying them. It took a long time to give myself permission to want to buy those things, to want to look good in a way that made me feel good.
I remember the realization that it was ok to feel good about my body, to dress it in the way I wanted, fuck what other people saw. It’s an on-going battle, but that’s part of being femme for me—accepting my body and myself without apology or eating disorders. As time has gone on, there’s a lot that being femme has also taught be to grapple with, to figure out about my identity and my place in the world without hiding myself or allowing shame or other people’s opinions of what I ‘should’ do become more important than being honest about myself. And that’s what femme role models are to me, too.
The femmes that inspire me, my role models, are so varied. They are the femmes who are always fabulously done-up; the ones who ride motorcycles and love pitbulls best; the femmes who are so flamboyantly different it doesn’t matter if you know the word, they are clearly femmes. My role models are the older femmes who carry history in their veins, who have been doing this longer than I’ve been alive and defy what the few b-f history books would have you believe: that we die off when we get older, or disappear into hetero-normativity without a backward glance. They are the femmes who are tough as nails; unapologetic femmes who are brash but kind, too. Femmes who are strong. Femmes who can articulate their own power, their own identity, who need no shadow to have plenty of depth.
My femme role models are the ones that lick the proverbial razor blade, those femmes that just don’t quit. They’re the femmes who find their own ways of combating invisibility, of combating stereotype without combating themselves. They’re the femmes who are fat and proud, and remind me I can do that, too. They’re the femmes who build their own bridges, who are out in places other queers are scared to tread, the femmes who come out every day, the femmes who don’t police what that means, but live it for themselves fully, without fear. They are femmes who see the intersectionality of our lives—that being femme is part of the whole in a world that our race, class, language, sexuality, gender and other identities collide and define and re-work and exist even in contradiction or rarity.
My femme role models aren’t always the femmes I aspire to be—does that sound like a contradiction too far? Perhaps the best way to put it is that they are the femmes I admire, who inspire me to be more myself, as they are infinitely themselves. And isn’t that what being femme is all about?
Filed Under: Miss Avarice, Writing Prompts
Written on: August 22, 2010
Do I even have any femme role models? I feel guilty for thinking that because there were plenty of feminine women in my life, but I don’t think that any of them had femme politics and values. They certainly weren’t queer, although I’ve wondered about Gram for awhile now. Grandma is really “something” as we say in the South. She’s strong. She asked me to help her carry a huge rock down the hill to a rock garden. It probably weighed 50 pounds and it was an awkward shape, The next day I was in horrible pain and she was fine!
She eats like a bird and is so slender. I remember sleeping over sometimes on Saturdays at my grandparent’s house. In the morning we would get dressed for church together. This is when I was probably somewhere between 5-8 years old. I remember watching her put on her makeup, so proficient… proficient, or not too worried about it being perfect. Some kind of necklace, often pearls. I love pearls passionately. Perfume. Even on days that she would wear pants, she still looked amazing and feminine. Of course, this my gram. Of course I think she’s amazing and beautiful! She usually still mows her own grass although she’s now in her mid 70s and although she puts on her gardening gloves and digs around in the dirt, she does so with such a grace and poise. She’s also the type of gal who does not suffer fools or put up with any kind of bullshit. Isn’t that one definition of femme? She can go about her normal activities, even stereotypically masculine activities, maintaining her feminine strength. I would like to think that I am something like her. I’m not thin like she is, I don’t believe that I have as much poise as she has cultivated throughout her life, I’m not as physically strong as she is right now. But in our femmeness and attitude and all the ways in which she and I interact with the world, our similarities come to light.
She’s also super crafty and an excellent cook just like me! She has crocheted countless afghans and blankets, and became quite an accomplished seamstress. Her recipes in my cookbook have frequently watered the mouths of friends and visitors to my home who raise up a chorus of moans upon tasting her culinary masterpieces. Even the easiest, least complicated recipes have become favorites that friends have begged me to make over and over again. I need to visit her…
Beyond Grandma as a role model for my feminine appearance, my queer femme politics were informed mostly by books, articles, blogs and a film. When I first thought I might be femme, I bought almost every book I could find on the internet about femme. And butch. And butch/femme. Some of it was erotica, some of it was gender and queer theory, but all of it resonated with me and I devoured them each one as soon as it arrived on my doorstep. The books didn’t tell me how to be femme, but they described how other people do femme. They echoed back to me my motives, values, desires as if the authors meant to describe me specifically. The film If These Walls Could Talk 2 (has anyone seen IFWCT1??) showed me femme and butch in a new way too. The second act about lesbian feminists in the early 70s. Chloë Sevigny as “Amy” melted my heart away with her butch smirk and swagger. I identified so much with Michelle Williams’ character, “Linda” because in the moment that this film captures she is just figuring out how to relate to butch oriented people… Linda may not know it, but I think she is also starting to allow her herself to be femme. That’s where I was four years ago.
I don’t mean to make all this sound like femmes are dependent on butches for their identity, or that butch and femme are inextricably intertwined, but they certainly have a shared history. For me, however, being femme has a LOT to do with loving butches; more specifically, loving butch and genderqueer tops (and ftm tops but that’s a topic for an entirely different post). I absolutely love to please them by acknowledging their masculinity through my submissive and feminine behavior. They affirm me as a submissive femme in the way that they offer their chivalry. Truthfully, it was learning everything I felt I could possibly learn about butches from books and blogs and Sinclair and my butch-ish friends that stirred my femme spirit up and out of my being. Pair that with my degree in Women’s Studies and just like magic, you’ve got a queer femme.
I guess I answered my own question, huh. Gram taught me how to be feminine, butches (tops) taught me how to be a (submissive) femme and women’s studies brought it all together, making me a lesbian feminist queer femme (politics + sexual identity).
Which is another topic for another post: lesbian being my politics not my sexual identity.
Femme Conference has been rocking my world and blowing my mind and all that good stuff, so I’m hoping this didn’t come out like stream of consciousness. If it did, I hope that you enjoyed the ride.
Filed Under: Sassafras
Written on: August 18, 2010
Last night while walking hand in hand with my partner through the west village we saw the most handsome of butch/femme couples. They were easily in there 80’s and out on an evening stroll through the neighborhood. I couldn’t look away. There love of each other radiated on the hot night and pounded into the pavement with each shuffled slow step. It was….. beautiful and simple, and inspiring and reminded me how right the world can be sometimes.
It was unexpectedly, a night full of remembering the importance of love. Before seeing the couple we walked past a construction site and some graffiti inspired me to take out my phone to capture the moment. I haven’t played with the lighting or contrast on the photo at all, just early evening light sinking over the buildings and reflecting onto the plywood of a construction site.
I’m pretty stressed right now. I was laid off from my gay4pay day job a little over a month ago. I’ve had several interviews but no serious bites yet, on top of heading into the most ambitious fall touring schedule to colleges I’ve ever attempted, teaching and reading at Floating World this weekend, and next weekend off to San Francisco (if you’re in the bay please please come to some of my events – 4 events in 3 days woot!) needless to say I was a little stressed out yesterday. By nature I’m an anxious, easily overwhelmed and stressed out person more often than not, and so even though at the end of the day I know things are alright, that we have money in savings and unemployment benefits. Even though I recognize we’re in far better shape than we could be, I still sometimes let the stress envelop me.
Last night felt like a cosmic face slap. A reminder, a wakeup call, a sign- whatever you want to call it, I got the message. Everything really is going to work out, and love is the answer. I plan to avoid stumbling down the path of quoting Beatles ‘all you need is love’ to y’all in order to (probably legitimately) avoid the risk of loosing all my readers, but I figured I’ll go as close to that as I can.
A few months ago I wrote a piece called ‘Scars’ that I read at Queer Memoir here in NYC, I ended the piece by saying:
“For me, love is the only thing that matters. Love has the power to destroy, but it’s also what saved me. Love is the knife that carved every scar on all three of my hearts, and is behind ever drop of ink on my skin. It’s what I’ve built my life on. I write a lot about pain and loss, about homelessness, abuse, and betrayal— but that’s not my whole story. When my tattoos are gone, and my bones are ash I want to be remembered for how much I loved not how many times I cried. “
In the moments where I feel most pushed to the limits, most stressed it is love that pulls me back from the brink. Love for and from my friends, community, extended chosen family all over the world, and most of all from my incredible partner who does things like spend all Sunday making homemade ice cream, and who right now every day tells me how proud ze is of how hard I’m working to find a job, and always how much ze loves me every single day. There are so many uncertainties in the world, and bad things happen all the time. You can drive yourself crazy obsessing and fearing them, or you can (or try to) just trust your love…..
Filed Under: Sassafras, Writing Prompts
Written on: August 4, 2010
Sorry for the delay in getting August’s Femmes Guide prompt posted!
Think about the role models (friends, family, celebrities etc. ) for your femme identity, who inspires you, who have you modeled your gender expression or style after? Who did you look to as inspiration when you were coming out as femme? Who do you look to now?
Written on: July 31, 2010
I’m getting ready to head out to Baltimore’s Red Emma bookstore for the Baltimore leg of the touring I’m doing with my anthology Kicked Out
but before I hit the road I wanted to get up a post about Femmepop this great musician who I just recently discovered. Her songs are super fun and very up my i love rock-ish folk music. lots of fun and you should for sure check out her myspace http://www.myspace.com/femmepop
