Femme But Not Femme

[[TW: short mention of dieting and eating disorders]]

Mod Venus here, finally getting to writing an actual post. I've been busy getting a job and being depressed, on top of not having my own laptop.

Lately, I've found myself more and more annoyed by the nonstop onslaught of people saying femme without meaning femme. Aka, basically anything labeled femme.

I am, unshockingly to anyone who's seen me, a femme. Next week I'm getting a tattoo of a teacup full of crystals, which I aim to get done in pink and purple, and in early May I'm getting my hair dyed pink again after taking it out years ago because I finally have a job where I'm allowed to have unnatural hair colors. I loathe pants thanks to sensory issues (and the good old fat bitch problem of wore down crotches!), I even am a fan of the traditional sharp as a knife, would use vantablack winged eyeliner!

The difference? I'm actually a lesbian, who does all of this to be notice by women, with a strong interest in lesbian history, a complicated relationship to gender and femininity, who recognizes that being hated for presenting feminine is an issue of misogyny, and that those attacking me likely hate butch & gnc women just as much if not more for not doing these things.

That sounds a bit... arrogant, probably. Which I can get! Femme is a word with a lot of connotations. Unfortunately, almost all of them are misinfo at best and lies at worst. And that's where my annoyance comes from.

Femme today, in common usage, refers to feminine presenting people. This, at a glance, makes a lot of sense. Femme is French for woman, and looks like shorthand for feminine. In a deeper sense, though, I honestly cannot understand this.

I first heard femme when I was 14, probably. I realized I was a lesbian in November, and around May I made a tumblr. I made mine because that was the height of my eating disorder, but that's another discussion all together.

From my year or so interacting with the lolita fashion (not nymphette, the cute not at all pedophilia related ridiculously priced Japanese street fashion lolita) and becoming Wiccan, I had a basic understanding of choice based feminism. So when I found all the feminist blogs on tumblr run by bi women, I was super excited! Other girls who liked girls! Talking about feminism and media! It excited me and I quickly became involved in it, following people like geekandmisandry, teaandfeminism, and fandomsandfeminism. I also quickly learned MOGAI politics and proghet ideals- being non straight is good, unless you're a lesbian. Lesbians are great! Until they're real and we can't ship them with men. Queer is great! Call yourself queer even if you feel uncomfortable and like it erases your actual identity!

That's also when I first saw femme. I knew a bit about femme and butch from watching lesbian youtubers, but I didn't know the history. I just knew that I couldn't relate to bi women talking about how queer and femme they were for fucking their boyfriends. And somehow, I felt bad for that.

One moment that I honestly to this day wish I had proof of because it sounds like such a strawman is I noticed a blog and went to check it out! I became viscerally uncomfortable though, when I saw a poem the woman had wrote about being a femme and a pillow princess. A poem about fucking her boyfriend.

I didn't think of femme as a lesbian or sapphic term at this point, but I knew what stone and pillow princess meant. And I knew it was wrong to use it in the context of straight sex. I don't even think this girl was bi. She just felt entitled to sapphic history.

Femme is used to mean feminine. Someone who dresses in a traditionally feminine matter. Femmes aren't masculine or androgynous! They're feminine!

I'm agender. I even lean a bit to calling myself androgyne, but feel agender captures it more. I don't have a real gender- my womanhood is a bit like a projection. Take a movie theater screen- it's white, just fabric, until the projector turns on and it becomes a screen for the light of a projector to show a movie. That's my gender.

Femme, however, is my presentation. I don't see myself as feminine- my clothes may be, but as a fat non cis lesbian I don't feel included in that word. I present for other women, butches and gnc women specifically in my case, to be found attractive. I do it because of my lesbianism, I do it because of my complicated feelings about my gender.

Femme is all about being sapphic, being around women, relating to women, loving women, kissing women, fucking women. There is no room for men, no room to talk about men. No room to talk about an experience of femininity that isn't centralized by sapphism. Femme is femininity with a rejection of men.

Because of that, I don't see how it can be understand by non sapphic women, especially non women. Further, I don't see why non lesbians have any desire to claim it. Femme and butch were developed before mga experiences were acknowledged- yes, mga women were involved, but if they weren't with a woman or seeking women at the time they likely weren't involved in the community.

I'm not gonna viciously search down non lesbians using femme unless they're straight women or non women altogether, but I'm also not going to pretend that washing femme down to femininity isn't doing lesbians a great disservice.

Mod Venus

NOTE- if you bring up ball culture, unless you're actually involved in it, I'm just gonna laugh because I, a white lesbian, am pretty obviously not talking about that!