amazon_syren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amazon_syren) wrote2007-01-20 01:20 pm
amazon_syren) wrote2007-01-20 01:20 pm
Entry tags:
Fe Fi Fo Femme
I read a very excellent article about being bisexual and femme (“On Being a Bisexual Femme”, Leah Lilith Albrecht-Samarasinha) and it was good food for thought.
See…
I recognized myself in her statement about her own femme-ness being rooted in her (sexual) hunger, her need to be filled up, to be touched so deeply that the touch would ‘burn through the layers of numbness I have wrapped around myself’, her need for intensity.
I recognize my own desire to be desired, my own need for intensity, my own need to be touched deeply by an answering hunger.
I can recognize in myself the ‘do-me queen’ and the tease. I am someone who loves the good-attention, the admiring glances, the compliments, and the sighs, even as I frankly despise the covetous glances, the leers, the interpretation of ‘no’ as being negotiable.
I recognize the vulnerability (and, thence, the required trust) that comes with the sexual openness/receptiveness that is traditionally defined as ‘femme’.
But there is also this tendency to define ‘femme’ by, or in opposition to, ‘butch’. Whether that’s by defining ‘femme’ through context – a femme (a feminine woman) is ‘het/passing as het’ unless she is defined as lesbian by the presence of a butch (a masculine woman) – or through desire (the assumption that femme women only desire butch/masculine women), or through "not" espousing any/all of the traits that are traditionally considered 'butch' - strength, action, power, competency, assertiveness, etc. (to reference Lisa Mary Oritz's "Dresses for my Round, Brown Body", from the same compilation).
In my case this isn’t so, and can’t be so[1].
I am married to a man.
I am married to a lovely, beautiful, gentle man with long eye lashes and a slim figure.
And my sexuality is not defined by his presence in my life (nor would it be defined by the presence in my life of a lovey, beautiful, gentle woman with long eye lashes and a slim figure -- or, for that matter, by either a man or a woman with rock-hard bicepts, a motorbike and a passion for tackle football... or something).
Nor is my sexuality defined by ‘how much can I take/take-in’ or ‘how much can I get/receive’.
Yes, I have the openness, the vulnerability, the need and the hunger that is traditionally defined as ‘femme’.
But I also have a need to feel someone else’s pleasure, and the understanding that, for me, sex isn’t about getting off. I don’t need an orgasm to enjoy sex (although it is a handy bonus), but I like it when my partner gets one. As such, I can also identify with the traditionally ‘butch’ trait of wanting to be the one who gives pleasure, who does the touching, who induces the orgasm in someone else.
The women who turn me on (and, for that matter, the men who turn me on), possess the same mix of vulnerability and hunger and intensity as I do.
I am a femme who falls for other femmes.
(Or, maybe, I’m just one hell of a narcissist).
I remember having a conversation about gender rolls and romance with a friend of mine. She said that she wouldn’t have the first clue how to act with another woman, whereas when it came to men, she knew what she was doing.
And, in response, I launched into this ramble about fairy tales and how sometimes I like to be the ‘princess’, and be taken care of and adored and what-not, but that I also like to be the ‘prince’ – the one who does the caring, and the protecting and the adoring.
The thing is, despite the fact that I was using a masculine term, ‘prince’, to name and classify those behaviours, I think of those behaviours as feminine (not uniquely feminine, but feminine none the less).
Of course, look at my user-name.
I've had an Amazon running around in the jungles of my mind since I was sixteen, maybe younger. The full-hipped woman, red in tooth and claw, who just exudes rich, womanly sexuality. Whose strength is as much is the swing of her hips, her long, shapely legs, her full breasts as it is in her arms, her shoulders, that can break through walls.
She walks barefoot and fearless through dappled deep shadow, and is everything wild about me. :-)
She used to be a man-killer, but her appetite for blood of that sort has been tempered significantly over the years. She expects to be pleased sexually if she lies down with someone, takes someone into her arms, but she will also do the pleasing (will she ever), and enjoy doing so. Lustful and luscious and lovely and alive, is my Amazon. :-)
Anyway.
That’s about as far as I’ve gotten on this whole thing. So I thought I’d post it and see what kind of thoughts it generated. :-)
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
[1] And is frankly, stupid. However there's a PoV espoused by certain subsections of both the Lesbian and the Feminist communities that continues to buy into the whole 'myth of the patriarchy' thing wherein anything overtly female/feminine is coded as weak/bad/manipulative/untrustworthy/dirty/less-than, etc. Which is a rant/ramble for another day. (But, oh, that day will come. ;-)
See…
I recognized myself in her statement about her own femme-ness being rooted in her (sexual) hunger, her need to be filled up, to be touched so deeply that the touch would ‘burn through the layers of numbness I have wrapped around myself’, her need for intensity.
I recognize my own desire to be desired, my own need for intensity, my own need to be touched deeply by an answering hunger.
I can recognize in myself the ‘do-me queen’ and the tease. I am someone who loves the good-attention, the admiring glances, the compliments, and the sighs, even as I frankly despise the covetous glances, the leers, the interpretation of ‘no’ as being negotiable.
I recognize the vulnerability (and, thence, the required trust) that comes with the sexual openness/receptiveness that is traditionally defined as ‘femme’.
But there is also this tendency to define ‘femme’ by, or in opposition to, ‘butch’. Whether that’s by defining ‘femme’ through context – a femme (a feminine woman) is ‘het/passing as het’ unless she is defined as lesbian by the presence of a butch (a masculine woman) – or through desire (the assumption that femme women only desire butch/masculine women), or through "not" espousing any/all of the traits that are traditionally considered 'butch' - strength, action, power, competency, assertiveness, etc. (to reference Lisa Mary Oritz's "Dresses for my Round, Brown Body", from the same compilation).
In my case this isn’t so, and can’t be so[1].
I am married to a man.
I am married to a lovely, beautiful, gentle man with long eye lashes and a slim figure.
And my sexuality is not defined by his presence in my life (nor would it be defined by the presence in my life of a lovey, beautiful, gentle woman with long eye lashes and a slim figure -- or, for that matter, by either a man or a woman with rock-hard bicepts, a motorbike and a passion for tackle football... or something).
Nor is my sexuality defined by ‘how much can I take/take-in’ or ‘how much can I get/receive’.
Yes, I have the openness, the vulnerability, the need and the hunger that is traditionally defined as ‘femme’.
But I also have a need to feel someone else’s pleasure, and the understanding that, for me, sex isn’t about getting off. I don’t need an orgasm to enjoy sex (although it is a handy bonus), but I like it when my partner gets one. As such, I can also identify with the traditionally ‘butch’ trait of wanting to be the one who gives pleasure, who does the touching, who induces the orgasm in someone else.
The women who turn me on (and, for that matter, the men who turn me on), possess the same mix of vulnerability and hunger and intensity as I do.
I am a femme who falls for other femmes.
(Or, maybe, I’m just one hell of a narcissist).
I remember having a conversation about gender rolls and romance with a friend of mine. She said that she wouldn’t have the first clue how to act with another woman, whereas when it came to men, she knew what she was doing.
And, in response, I launched into this ramble about fairy tales and how sometimes I like to be the ‘princess’, and be taken care of and adored and what-not, but that I also like to be the ‘prince’ – the one who does the caring, and the protecting and the adoring.
The thing is, despite the fact that I was using a masculine term, ‘prince’, to name and classify those behaviours, I think of those behaviours as feminine (not uniquely feminine, but feminine none the less).
Of course, look at my user-name.
I've had an Amazon running around in the jungles of my mind since I was sixteen, maybe younger. The full-hipped woman, red in tooth and claw, who just exudes rich, womanly sexuality. Whose strength is as much is the swing of her hips, her long, shapely legs, her full breasts as it is in her arms, her shoulders, that can break through walls.
She walks barefoot and fearless through dappled deep shadow, and is everything wild about me. :-)
She used to be a man-killer, but her appetite for blood of that sort has been tempered significantly over the years. She expects to be pleased sexually if she lies down with someone, takes someone into her arms, but she will also do the pleasing (will she ever), and enjoy doing so. Lustful and luscious and lovely and alive, is my Amazon. :-)
Anyway.
That’s about as far as I’ve gotten on this whole thing. So I thought I’d post it and see what kind of thoughts it generated. :-)
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
[1] And is frankly, stupid. However there's a PoV espoused by certain subsections of both the Lesbian and the Feminist communities that continues to buy into the whole 'myth of the patriarchy' thing wherein anything overtly female/feminine is coded as weak/bad/manipulative/untrustworthy/dirty/less-than, etc. Which is a rant/ramble for another day. (But, oh, that day will come. ;-)