i am kind of talked out on this subject. i have said it all before. i have enjoyed some of the posts a lot. i don't buy into the continuum idea. i am femme. End of that conversation.
Most of the talk about femme doesn't resonate for me. i don't think of it so much in terms of my femininity or even my relationship to butches.
i came out as femme about the same time i came out as kinky. And one of the things i had to defend was loving to get fucked and loving to get fucked by big mean butches. These days, that's everyday gender performance. A femme talking about loving to go down on her butch partner is more likely to evoke surprise. But back in the day, it was shocking.
i am femme because it's part of my history. i don't express it in everything that i do and in every way that i fuck. i don't exude femme. i don't represent femme. i don't define it or let it define me. i don't classify everything that i do in terms of gender expression. If i spread my legs wide, i may not be enacting my inner boy or expressing my inner whore. i may just be getting comfortable. If my bedroom is decorated with pink and yellow scarves and floral prints this year while last year it was all chrome and black and white photos, it may not mean anything more than i wanted some color.
i don't play with gender for pleasure although i have in the past. i am old and settled and comfortable. i like gender in me and in others. Absence of gender markers is not hot to me. But gender is not my major (or even minor) route of self-discovery.
In most ways, my gender expression has turned out to look a lot like my straight vanilla mother's did. So it clearly hasn't been that closely tied to my queerness or my kink.
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