In my experience people who are not just content with but turned on by doing it with stone partners are especially precious for their ability to make really hot sex happen in a way that hinges on these otherwise precarious experiences of embodiment. In other words, it’s not that they get turned on by their stone partner’s dysphoria/pain/disavowal around whatever bodily features, but that they *get* and are turned on by the body that their partner inhabits when having sex with them, a body that’s created, sustained + valued through the exchange of touch.

**disclaimer**

there are certainly people who ARE controlling and manipulative around their partner’s stoneness, using it as an excuse to refuse to engage with their partner’s sexuality, or as a reason to push their partner to do things they don’t like. those people are not interested in healthy relationships, and i want no association with them.

**end disclaimer**

that said, i think there is something to be celebrated in being able to complement someone’s sexuality with one’s own and make something transcendent. these afore-mentioned stone butches are doing the same thing for me, after all. i find within myself a capacity to understand their needs in bed, to adapt to them, to respect their boundaries while still maintaining a fulfilling sexual relationship.

for their part, they must manage their end of this by clearly communicating their boundaries, respecting my desires and wishes, and understanding that i do have boundaries and limits too, though it often doesn’t seem that way. my boundaries are often emotional ones, rather than physical ones, but that makes them no less valid.

ultimately, a person’s stoneness should not be used as an excuse not to build a healthy, mutually respectful relationship with another. neither should a person’s openness be used that way either. and if the stone aspect of a person is a phase that they are going through during a process of healing, it should be recognized and celebrated just the same as if it is a life-long aspect of their sexuality. ‘melting stone’ is a repugnant, misogynist concept, based on the idea that we should all always make our bodies available for someone else’s sexual needs. you don’t find straight women trying to ‘melt the stone’ around their boyfriends asses very often, and it’s certainly not valorized as what every girl should be trying to do…

Okay, I am stone in the sense of being literally, physically “untouchable.” And I am a little bit bothered by people taking an identification based on seeking out stone partners. First of all, stone is not just a masculine thing; people of all gender identities and expressions can be stone. “Stone femme” to mean someone who desires stone butch partners sets up this diametrically opposed rubric for the meaning of “stone,” and I think it’s problematic.

Secondly, I don’t find it’s something many of us are especially proud of in private moments. Content in the pleasure and devotion we give to our partners, yes. But for many of us, I think stone is just a way of saying that there is an uneasy truce with our bodies, whether due to “gender dysphoria” (for lack of a better term) or sexual assault triggers or both or maybe something else. Sure, we should celebrate queer diversity in all its forms, and I’m the first to say that each of us should be as much of a “top” or “bottom” as we want and no shame in being 100% “bottom.” Yet the idea that someone might specifically seek me out, not just because I’m a loving top, but because I’m frankly too disgusted with my own body to take off my underwear in front of people I *love*, is really disturbing to me, and it does feel exploitative – perhaps even more so than the predatory straight men who pursue me because I have “a little something extra” (and because they expect trans female spectrum people to have low self-esteem, to be easily pleased, etc.) Really. I’m not butch or masculine so it hasn’t happened to me so explicitly, but in principle it still squicks me a lot.

Maybe this is just a difference between those of us who quietly use “stone” just to describe that relationship to our bodies, and people who fly their stone flag high to mean something larger. I’m just concerned that the line between us is probably fuzzier than it appears on the surface.

I mean, all due respect in this. I’m obviously not anti-stone. I realize that queer women and femmes who are 100% “bottoms” have to deal with people disputing their queerness, and that’s bullshit that needs to be called out. And maybe I’m wrong. I’m open to being wrong. That’s just my femme + stone (but not “stone femme”) perspective.

agreed that my first, and only for a while, understanding (rudimentary, obvs) of ‘stone femme’ was a femme who id’d as stone and was not down for being touched. to me the thought of this was so awful cuz i id’d as femme, and it was far from what i lived and wanted (as a femme) that i quickly forgot about it, and kept it forgotten for a while.

don’t think my brand of femme will ever quite match up to much near stone femme, regardless of the definition.

also as an FYI there is a rad piece in the latest j of gay&les studies about marriage & ann bannon books.
xoxo