Art Is A Hammer

So I was thinking about this random quote: "Art is not a mirror. Art is a hammer." And I was thinking about art. And Ivan E. Coyote. At the same time. Cause I'm good like that. I discovered Ivan via Sugarbutch, and zie- this is a good person for nonspecific pronouns- is just brilliant. Amazing. I think every femme has her list of butch heartbreakers, and mine generally involves intellectuals. I mean, I can't discount k.d. lang or Dylan Rion, but my heart (and uh, any other regions) throbs for brainy butches: Rachel Maddow, Alison Bechdel and of course, studly genius Sinclair Sexsmith. So there's this video of this edible and nutritious butch, reading a short story with quite the Canadian accent (is there a word for that?). I have never heard that much Yukon in one person's voice before. And zie's reading about the methods and difficulties of packing, and I nearly swooned right there in front of my monitor-not to mention in front of my fiancee. I was entranced.

And this was before I was even really aware of hir words. And I had to start the video over, and actually listen to it (did you know blushing makes it hard to concentrate? I didn't). And hir writing is... warm. It's funny, and accessible, and sometimes a little wistful, and I savored it. I went to the library and read The Slow Fix, which was all the library had, and when I was done I wanted more.

Zie's writing about Canada, and often about solitude; I should be cold, shivery and lonely (I'm a rather empathic reader) when I'm done, but I'm not. I'm warm and as I read I'm smiling . It's like hearing stories about my family, and since many of hir stories describe being gay in a not-very-post-homophobic world, in a way it is.

Zie describes hirself as a "kitchen-table storyteller", and that's exactly what it is. And I love it.

I enjoy being taken by surprise by art. I was taking a class in Florence and one day, we went to an art gallery. "Cezanne in Firenze"; Impressionist art. Heretofore I'd always thought of Impressionism as 'pretty'. Monet, Van Gogh. Starry Night, Water Lilies, all that jazz. And then at some point while I was wandering around absorbing these paintings... I changed my mind.

The color, the strokes of the brush, the way you can tell how the artist was feeling about the subject or the day or the paints just from the damn painting! -it just blew my fucking mind. I stayed for two hours, I spent my lunch and dinner money on a book of the exhibition's art, I couldn't stop talking on the way home. I was wired, like I'd had an adrenaline orgasm and a pot of espresso. I was on fire, it was a revelation. I was thunderstruck by Impressionist art.

I know there're some people that don't feel the same fiery passion for their spouses that I can feel about art, or sex, or teaspooning against injustice, or sometimes even discussions of philosophy. (Yes, I'm serious.) And I am sorry for those people.

And I guess the point of all this is that Ivan E. Coyote's work didn't hit me like a hammer. And I was okay with that. As I read, it opened itself like a window, it wrapped around me like a blanket, it felt good under my hands like a leash or a steering wheel, like it wasn't going to take me anywhere I didn't want to go.

Something I know is that people revere classics, but they read stories. I feel as though I have found a friend in this author, and when the world is sad and scary I'd rather have a blanket than a hammer.

Ink Link

So this is my tattoo. It's my first tattoo ever. I decided to make my personal political and get a femme spiral on my shoulder. I then decided to treat you to an extreme closeup of it. Yay!

It is indeed a vine. Points for noticing that. It symbolizes my religion, and also, yes, my incredible pretensiousness.

It's very new in this picture, which explains the shiny tat goo all over it. 

And oh yeah, please ignore the fact that I am very extemely pale. I am Whitey McNoTan von Needstoseethesunmore.

...My very first ink! Squee!

...And here is a kitteh picture, as requested by PhysioProf. And as a refreshing change from me and my epidermis.

 

Chaos and Nomad are conquering the laundry basket. For strategic nap purposes.

Revaluing Beauty

So I was thinking about a comment the lovely SublimeFemme left on my Femmethology post. She said "...Femme revalues beauty and pleasure in a world that largely devalues these things."
This confused me for a sec. If you look, it seems like there is more importance placed on these things than ever. Women, especially, must be beautiful and give pleasure. We have become entitled and spoiled, materialistic consumer-types. Things must "look good" and "feel good" to everyone, otherwise it's not fuckin worth it, amirite? Rockstar and Grandtheftauto for all!
Oh, wait...
Perhaps she was talking about a different kind of value on beauty and pleasure. Maybe she meant taking pleasure in things that don't necessarily harm others. Maybe she meant taking pleasure in beauty that is not self-destructive. Maybe she meant beauty and pleasure that is subjective, and not mandated.
What an astonishing idea!
I think we femmes reject a lot of the patriarchal ideals of suffering for beauty. I know I do. But I also know that I feel a great, slightly guilty pleasure at smooth sheets or new perfume. [Insert your shock at my shameful sybaritism here!]
I feel good when I have a good hair day. (Do I give a shit when I have a bad one? Not really. And that might be an important difference.)
Appreciating beauty when it comes your way is not the same as assuming you're entitled to it all the time. Appreciating sensual pleasures- hot showers, chocolate coffee, orgasms- is not the same as demanding that everything be for your amusement and benefit.

I thing society devalues certain types of beauty and pleasure for men. And I think men have a hard time with that. If a man publicly states that he enjoys a subtle tea blend instead of Redbull(shit), if he buys high thread count sheets, if he takes a moment to look at a damn rainbow, he is mocked by his peers. For a man to enjoy these sensual pleasures makes him womanly and weak (which are synonymous! of course!), as anything identified as "womanly" is inherently less valuable in our society. Men are only supposed to take pleasure in violent or unhealthy things! Like doublebacon cheeseburgers, and makin too much money, and six-packs, and fuckin' drunk chicks, or fightin'!
Rainbows and chocolate and dewy skin are out, boys; sorry.
This is just one of the aspects of "things-perceived-as-'woman territory'-being-devalued-just-because": think about all the jobs, literature, other stuff done mostly by women that is being dismissed as 'unimportant'.
And that is sad. Because these types of little, physical or emotional pleasures are part of what keeps us going in life, I think. We don't get a lot of "big" happy moments in life, and appreciating the little ones is what helps us deal with the bad stuff. If guys aren't allowed to do that, or are only allowed to enjoy "certain types" of pleasures that are often not good for them (or other people), then... well, then life just sucks, I think. It makes life harder for everyone.
We should revalue these things, for everyone. I hope we do.
To ladies, dudes, femmes, butches, and everyone everywhere: go appreciate something pretty. Seriously. Go do something that makes you feel good.
(...No, not that. Something else!)

(Tip o' the hat to the fabulous SF)

Femme Is A Gift: Hedonism, Choices and Subversion

So I'm supposed to be writing for the Femmethology tour. Visible: A Femmethology is a sigh-of-happiness book- it's always a relief to me to read the stories and experiences of other femmes. They asked me to participate. Didn't give me any limits or anything. Very cool, right?

...And I have no idea what to write. The pressure, the pressure! Am I supposed to be witty? Intellectual? Original? Yeah, right. Me?

So I decided that I would do my favorite thing, which is to ask questions that may or may not have an answer.

How do I talk about femme as a shared experience, discuss it in a way that is meaningful? And my everfabulous Ferret had a good starting place. "Being femme means paying more attention to culture, to the world around you."

I wasn't sure I liked that. Doesn't that mean conformity? Some people would see it as a weakness, that paying attention to them means they tell you what to do.

"Awareness doesn't always equal conformity. Don't you say, know the rules so you can break them?"

Well, yes, but that's because I'm intrinsically diabolical. But she had a point.

I think we do discard a lot of society's mandates in our effort not to be this Neo-June Cleaver, vacuuming the house in pearls and putting pies in the oven. I think for a lot of people femme conjurs up this vision of a lesbian housewife in lipstick and Laura Ashley, and for some femmes that's true, and they're happy that way.

Most of us are feminists, and maybe it's not just me who has trouble reconciling femme, with its traditional-feminine overtones, with being at least somewhat subversive. We are subversive; unique, I think, simply by existing. Lesbians! Without bad haircuts and flannel! What will society do?!

So why do we do it? What makes us unique? My butch has the answer, again: "Femmes give us butches the femme side of them; you give it like a gift. If I demanded it of you, being feminine, all that- I'd never get it."

And she went on (I'm paraphrasing here): It doesn't mean we aren't subversive, or that we're falling into the usual cultural mandates; it just means we're more selective about who we give us to, about who we care for, and how we do it.

It also doesn't mean that we can't take care of ourselves. We can hang pictures, squish bugs, replace lightbulbs, get stuff off the high shelves, and stand up for ourselves all on our own. And we can usually do it, my darlings, with style. But.

There are different ways to take care of someone. We care for them the way they need, and they care for us. And that is huge. And incredible. That makes us pretty freaking awesome.

I chose femme. Are there queer girls out there who didn't, who just went through life knowing that one day they were destined for corsets and style and a butch boifriend? Probably. I can tell you it surprised the hell out of me.

I love performing femme because I think we do hedonism so very well. Can you imagine a Puritanical femme? If it's in our life it has to look good, or feel good; better if it's both. Does that make us shallow, frivolous like they say we are? (Don't tell me you've never heard it said.) I don't think so. Maybe the people who call us frivolous are jealous. Maybe they don't know how to enjoy a little healthy hedonism, or maybe they don't understand that life is too short to waste on things that give no pleasure. ...We have a lot to teach you.

To me, femme is what we do. Femme is the sex we have, the who and how. It is the way we walk and talk and flirt. It is the clothes we wear, whether we wear silk and heels or skater shorts or blue jeans that slide down because we've forgotten to wear a belt (maybe that's just me). It is the pillow talk with a lover and the way we take care of them, the way we listen, the way we tell them what they want or need to hear. The way we demand things- attention, respect, compliments (you know it's true).

We perform femme. We do it, every day. We are tops as well as bottoms, we do partner with non-butch queers, we do wear sneakers, we are tough, we are even fashion impaired! Sometimes.

So have I talked too much, been pompous? Yeah, probably. Forgive me- it's my first blog tour!

This book made me so happy because it says: you are not alone. You are not wrong if you're confused. You're not weak. You're just who you are.

Which is something everyone needs to hear sometimes, no matter how fabulous they are.

PS- Go see the other posts on the tour this month because they rock!

4/1. Sugarbutch Chronicles

4/2. Ellie Lumpesse

4/3. Queer-o-mat

4/4. CyDy Blog

4/6. Catalina Loves

4/7. cross-post: The Femme’s Guide and Femme Fagette

4/8. Daphne Gottlieb

4/9. Bilerico Project

4/10. Screaming Lemur: Femme-inism and Other Things

4/13. The Femme Hinterland

4/14. Bochinche Bilingüe: Borderlands Writing and The Vagina Adventures

4/15. Dorothy Surrenders

4/16. Miss Avarice Speaks Her Mind

4/17. The Femme Show

4/19. Sexuality Happens

4/20. Queer Fat Femme

4/21. Sublimefemme Unbound

4/22. Tina-cious.com and Jess I Am (butch-femme couple day!)

4/23. FemmeIsMyGender

4/24. The Lesbian Lifestyle

4/25. Femme Fluff

4/26. Weldable Cookies

\4/27. The Verbosery

4/28. A Consuming Desire and Creative Xicana

4/29. Queercents

4/30. en|Gender

Femmethology Tour

The Femmethology Virtual Tour begins today!
Hooray!
(I am on it! Holy crap!)

I better get cracking and write something femme-tastic.

...In the meantime, I will write the same random shit I always do and just hope it sounds cool.

But you should check out the site, and the other blogs on the list, many of whom are way more awesome than I.

My tour date is the 10th!

W00t!

Schizo-femme-ia

So I got to thinking the other day. I was walking through Wal-Mart (I hate that place with a fucking fiery passion), and I saw a butch. An older lady, with her partner, which was a really nice thing to see. Yes. Butch sighting in the WalMart! Now those make my day any time, but more so here in this town where apparently you keep your 'mo on the down-low. So as she was walking by, I thought: I love when I recognize a member of the Family. But... how would they recognize me? If she heard me say "Day-um!" under my breath (I did, too), would she take it as a compliment or think I was just another uppity breeder? 

I have issues about my personal visibility because there are so many factors. (I have so many issues, I should just buy the subscriptions, but anyway.)

For one, I don't want to brodcast my identity to everyone because, well, I'm still not comfy being gay in this town. I still worry, and it makes me mad that I have to worry about losing clients or assholes accosting me, but there it is. Hell, it was a major personal triumph when I put a small rainbow decal on my car! 

Then, too, I'm sort of... in the middle when it comes to gender expression. I'm certainly not high femme, like the lovely SublimeFemme. But I'm also not butch, like the studly Sinclair. I'm a- Ellen said it perfectly: "I'm not really a lipstick lesbian. I'm more of a... Chapstick lesbian." Sometimes I feel like I'm not recognizable as much of anything. Someone tell me, is it just me? Do any other queer girls wish for a box, a label, a knowable and noticeable archetype, or even a stereotype? Anybody else wonder sometimes whether things would be different-- easier-- if you were a different flavor? Something simple like say, mint chocolate, instead of cherry-banana-vanilla-mocha-walnut? 

What the hell is a Practical Femme to do? 

So that's my issue for the week, kittens. I worry about not looking femme enough. I worry about looking too butch. I worry about being too visible as gay, and not visible enough.

And then my partner asks me why it is I get so stressed. 

Is it just me?

Non-Depressing Linky Goodness

BRAVE: What To Expect When You're Aborting. Want to know what it's like? Unapologetic, real, and an eye-opener. Go see if you haven't yet. And yes. Yes, this adorable illustration is exactly what it's like.

AWESOME: Bitch magazine has been saved! I'm a bitch, you're a bitch, etc. This is definitely good news.

QUEER PSA: The best "Vote No on 8" ad I've seen. I want them to air this on TV. It has been noted that it's kinda lacking in POC's, but other than that it's awesome.
h/t Alas, a blog

FEMINIST PSA: It's pretty good. Disappointing that we need one, but something to point your coworkers/friends to if they need something illustrative.
h/t The Feminist Underground

BEST RANT OF THE WEEK: Essin' Em lets loose on guys who get in our personal space. This is a big thing of mine, so it's nice to see it addressed! That kinda made my day, and I had to include it at the last minute.

BLOG ENDORSEMENT OF THE WEEK: Natalia Antonova, a blog that deals with feminism, Eastern European and Middle-Eastern politics, and occasionally, stuff. Her What About The Menz? post was pointed and nasty- which of course I love.

OLD-SCHOOL: The Politics of Housework, an essay written in 1970 that still applies today. Which is, um, pretty sad. If you haven't read this, it's highly recommended reading.

FEMME-TASTIC: I can't be all serious, can I? Go to AfterEllen.com and see the 15 Hottest Butches of all time.

So that's it for now. An interesting mix, I hope?
Feel free to leave links in the comments.

Hey, Femme Girls. Over Here!

I found something that makes me happy. Over at the Femme's Guide to Everything, there's this fabulous post by Essin' Em, who I love, about butch/femme symbolism and how butches used to tattoo blue stars on their wrists back in the day, as a secret sign of queer butch-ness. 

Welllll, it was pointed out that femmes don't really have a sign that we can point to as "ours". Em suggested the spiral, for the reasons she lists:

"...it’s a basic concept, that can be changed and altered to fit the personality of each Femme getting it tattooed.  It’s pretty (I *am* a Femme!). It’s a simple concept, but also slightly complicated (more than a circle, or a triangle, or _____). Just like Femmes; we’re a simple idea, but with a lot more depth and complicatedness behind our hottness.

I'm totally behind this. I think it's awesome that the Femmes could have a sign of our own, especially since so many of us get mistaken for straight girls. It's a way to communicate, to proclaim, to be noticed. And a spiral is a very cool symbol, linked to all kinds of religions and cultures; I believe some even use it as a sign of Goddess. 

Anyway, I'm posting this because I'd like to get more femmes behind this symbol. I'd like it to become known in the LGBTQ community, a symbol as recognized as a pink triangle or a rainbow flag. If I get this tattooed on my so-far ink-free body, I want people to know what it means, know what I am. I'm proud of it, and I want it known.

So pass this around, if it takes your fancy. This is a way to help end femme invisibility, if you're into that. Let's make it- and us- recognized.

Femme By Default

So as I'm wandering the blogosphere, avoiding the job search, I come across this post by Sinclair and then SublimeFemme's response to it. Both, at the end, ask about us, as femmes. What are our femme markers, and along the same lines, how do we define them? Do we define them in relation to butch? How do we define femme for ourselves, and in what ways do our bodies or sexuality shape that femme-ness?

All very good questions, to be sure. And then I had a moment wherein I realized: I have no fucking clue. I have no fucking clue and it's driving me up the wall. How do I define my femme self? What about me makes me femme? It should be an easy question to answer, because I'm like Princess Psychoanalystica, especially when it comes to the workings of my own twisted brain. Yes, I do find myself that fascinating and I know it's narcissistic, thanks very much.

Every time I try to think about it, I shy away. I try to treat it like my partner treats butch: "This is what I am. If people don't like it they can fuck off. That's all there is to it." (Yes, that's a direct quote. I love my Ferret.) The thing is, that's how she handles almost everything; introspective she's not, as a rule. And I can't work that way. I have to think about everything, take it down to its component parts, analyze it, toss out a couple extra springs, and then reassemble it all before I'm satisfied. When I have an opinion, make a major decision, or claim a new 'label' for myself, this is what I do. 

But I didn't do that when I claimed 'femme'. I just kind of thought, "Okay, this is my partner, who's undeniably butch. I'm not a butch, or not as much as she, and I seem to have all the femme markers (which at that point to me were: long hair, acknowledgement of boobs, girly undies, and the willingness to wear a skirt sometimes). Femme it is!" I applied Sinclair's Dress-Up Test to the dynamic and called it good. Keep in mind, this was several years ago. I'd just been introduced to the idea of butch/femme. 

Shortly after this, Ferret and I split up, to go our seperate ways. We would not be lovers for a good four years. For two of those years, we wouldn't even speak to each other. Obviously, we reconciled our differences and now you couldn't part the two of us without a really big crowbar. Uh, metaphorically.

So now we've been together for some time. I've not been in any butch/femme relationships in that time. In fact, I tended to be slightly 'butch-er' when I was with another woman, and I wasn't all "high heels and low cleavage" with a guy. I've become "femme-by-default", and I don't know 

just what i consider my markers to be, or how I define myself as femme, other than in relation to my very butch Ferret.

Which disturbs me. I want to be femme on my own, not just because I'm with someone who needs me to be, so we balance out. It doesn't bother me to be the femme, I don't think. I just have to know I have my own reasons for doing it. So now I have to figure out what they are.

I need to identify my femme-ness and work out my issues with being one of them (you? us?).

Sadly, this post feels like "exploring my angst", and not so much about "coming to productive conclusions". Oh well, maybe that'll come later.

PS: I'm working on a post about women and symbolism. Check it out when it goes up (sometime soon!); it'll either be really cool and possibly a little original, or it'll be some half-baked random crap! It's a mystery!

I Obsess About Butch-Femme Politics

So I was thinking about this whole butch-femme thing. Is it really as rare as I've heard, is it something more or less than I think it is, do I even know what the hell I think it is?
And I was thinking about the difficulties my Ferret and I have occasionally when it comes to gender roles. And it's all very incoherent and very personal.
I'm a feminist. She's never dated one of those before, apparently. She's a traditionalist. I've never dated one of those, as far as I know. So we have differences in viewpoint when it comes to the things we do, the roles we play in the relationship, and we're still working it out.

One of the most memorable discussions we've had about how our experiences are signified was an argument, actually. I like to argue, sometimes. But this one was frustrating, with me constantly saying things like "I don't want you to pay for my dinner, because I can take care of myself!" "I don't need you to carry my groceries; you do realize I can I carry you around the damn Publix parking lot, right?" What I was saying to her is I'm not helpless, please don't treat me like glass. I work hard to be tough and independent, and I want you to respect me as an equal, not patronize me as though I can't do things for myself. And finally, she said to me: "Look, I know you're my equal. I love that you can take care of yourself. But this is how I was raised. This is how I show you that I love you, it's the only way I know how. It makes me feel good to take care of you, and it makes me happy that you trust me to do these things for you. If you really hate it, tell me what you want me to do instead. Don't just yell at me for telling you that I love you."

And with that, I fell silent. There was nothing I could say. I had never thought of it like that. So now, I take her gestures the way she means them, and don't reject them. It would have been nice if I could have stumbled onto this article before this argument. Sometimes, just like the way she shakes her head and says "Chicks are weird" when my thought processes elude her, I want to say the same thing about her: the butch brain continues to mystify me. As much as I adore her, sometimes the wish to know what she's really thinking makes me pace and jitter and sigh. Why didn't she tell me this before? So now I get it, I think.

On one hand, part of me still wants to argue, wants to say, what if I don't want to be "precious"? Don't want to feel like a lovely, cherished, adored possession? Isn't that what that means? On the other hand, when my partner holds me tight and growls "you're mine", I melt. I am a warm puddle of femme and I feel like I'm in my own private universe with her, which I'm thinking is part of the experience of being femme in the first place.

So, isn't that what subversive gender roles are all about? Femme power being different from, but still equal to, that of our butch counterparts? Very much like BDSM- wherein the Dom has the obvious power- s/he holds the whip, ties the knots, gives the orders. The sub, however, has the unseen and most important power- the power to say, 'stop'. The safeword is an automatic end to the scene, and without a sub, who will the Dom play with? We subs have a great deal of subtle power, and so, I guess, do we femmes.

The thing is, this sounds a lot like the argument many folks make when the subject of male/female equality comes up. "Women have a lot of power- they run the house, they influence the men, they hold the cards sexually." Now completely leaving aside the matter of rape, in which all the so-called 'cards' are yanked out of a woman's hands and shredded, doesn't this sound kind of like "We gave you bitches the vote, what more do you want?"
They're basically calling women- and if we follow the binary gender dynamic to its logical correlation, the femmes- the power behind the throne. We have influence, emotional power, power through or men or butches. And that can be awesome, and scary, and subversive. But it can also be very, very tiresome. I get sick of the indirect route sometimes. I don't want power through someone else! I don't want emotional power- I want tangible power! I wanna wear the pants and make the laws and earn the money and make the decisions! I want the mechanic to talk to me as though I matter and sometimes, I even wanna pay for dinner and carry the groceries.

And sometimes, I want to be protected and have doors opened for me and let someone else take care of me. Yes, honey, you make the decisions today. You deal with the mechanic, he's an asshole anyway. Compliment me on my heels, I wore them because you like them. Will you take the garbage out? And then you can rest your head in my lap and we can tell each other about our day. I want to wear perfume and be enticing; when I take my butch's arm, I want her to look at me with desire and feel proud and amazed that this woman is with her.

So what's a femme-inist to do? Is it possible to let someone else lead, sometimes? Is it possible that trusting her to take care of me isn't an automatic admission of weakness? Is it possible to subvert gender roles by just being who we are, or is playing the butch/femme game a betrayal of everything I try to do and stand for? I'd welcome another femme feminist's point of view on this. Am I making a bigger deal out of this than it has to be? Gah, too many questions, too many question marks. I guess I'll just put it out there and see if anyone has any answers for me, because with this one, I don't think I can find the answer for myself.