Open Letter: Dear Femme

[SuperFemme]

Anybody I have ever slept with is Queer. Mind you I have four kids. Why are they Queer? Because when I give myself or take somebody else I am doing so a a Femme. I don't care if it is a transman, a bio-man, the Fed-Ex guy/girl, or that one nun from high school. The act of fucking ME is also an act of queering the other person. I'm not a heterosexual. I'm not straight. When I hop into bed it is not as a straight woman, but rather a Queer Femme. So. I don't care if my fellow fuckee is a straight identified transman or any variety of man. They are engaging in a homosexual act.

Luckily there is only one person whom I fuck. I consider hym to be faggy.

[evolveme]

I love y'all, and I think I understand why some of you share this conceptualization around queering others by virtue of fucking them, but it doesn't work for me, and here's why: Although I hold an identity as queer lesbian (femme is my gender) my sexual orientation is more accurately pansexual. It would not work for me whatsoever if by having sex with a straight leaning male-identified fella, a straight heterosexual transman, or a straight bio male that any of these folks decide I were "straightened out" by the act of sex with them.

I think we have the capacity to affect one another on all kinds of levels when we engage this way, but never in the way that we identify, unless that mechanism is not held consciously by us.

See, if it's an act of taking back power for us to say that anyone who fucks me is queered by me, then I feel that power was artificial in the first place because it cannot work both ways. If it only works for me, and not him, then it's a lesser power. He'd think of it as trite, possibly.

I don't want a trite power. I want a whole one.

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by evolveme

I love y'all, and I think I understand why some of you share this conceptualization around queering others by virtue of fucking them, but it doesn't work for me, and here's why: Although I hold an identity as queer lesbian (femme is my gender) my sexual orientation is more accurately pansexual. It would not work for me whatsoever if by having sex with a straight leaning male-identified fella, a straight heterosexual transman, or a straight bio male that any of these folks decide I were "straightened out" by the act of sex with them.

I think we have the capacity to affect one another on all kinds of levels when we engage this way, but never in the way that we identify, unless that mechanism is not held consciously by us.

See, if it's an act of taking back power for us to say that anyone who fucks me is queered by me, then I feel that power was artificial in the first place because it cannot work both ways. If it only works for me, and not him, then it's a lesser power. He'd think of it as trite, possibly.

I don't want a trite power. I want a whole one.

I feel one hundred percent whole in my power because the act of queering for *me* has always been consensual. Every. Single. Time.

I discuss before I leap, because I am sick and fucking tired of the world at large identifying me by whom I fuck. Nobody gets to do that to me.

Now I must confess I have had dialogue with those who would not consent with me, nor I with them. No clothes were removed after the dialogue.

The power within me is to remain Queer because it is who I am.

[evolveme]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

I discuss before I leap, because I am sick and fucking tired of the world at large identifying me by whom I fuck.

This rather relates to what y'all were discussing before in the way a femme's (and I would say, a feminine person's) agency shifts when she is single. Aspersions are cast, rumors are flung, assumptions run like flood waters. She is identified by both who she is fucking and who she isn't (i.e., who it is assumed she is fucking).

I love that you've made your queer a conscious conversation. This is so important, perhaps especially for women. Sometimes, this has been true for me as well. But either way, it can never be negated. I don't need it to be true for anyone else. I don't have to make it true for them for it to remain true for me. Queer has less, these days, to do with who or how I've fucked than how I think.

I believe we're more alike that way, and in most ways, probably, than we could ever be different. And that is the reason, after all, that I found a home in femme. Why my queer is centered here.

[Bit]

Originally Posted by evolveme

..... It would not work for me whatsoever if by having sex with a straight leaning male-identified fella, a straight heterosexual transman, or a straight bio male that any of these folks decide I were "straightened out" by the act of sex with them.

.......See, if it's an act of taking back power for us to say that anyone who fucks me is queered by me, then I feel that power was artificial in the first place because it cannot work both ways. If it only works for me, and not him, then it's a lesser power. He'd think of it as trite, possibly.

I don't want a trite power. I want a whole one.

Julie, these are my first thoughts and I'm not sure I answered everything you said in this post.... heck, this might even be a tangent, but it's what came to me.

Femme is at the bedrock for me. It's what kind of energy flows through this body to express this soul. It's NOT my sexuality--it's my gender.

Queer is my sexuality as well as my community. So yes, if I have sex with another female-bodied person, the very act of two females having sex together is Queer and it doesn't matter what the other person claims, Straight, Bisexual, Lesbian---if they're sleeping with ME, a Queer Femme (dating, or in a relationship--not talking about the merely curious straight woman who dabbles and is gone), then they're Queer in some way. If they weren't before, well guess what, they are now.... just as I was when I started sleeping with my first partner, even though I insisted LOUDLY I was still straight.

NOT, I say to that long-ago girly. NOT. *wry smile*

I'm not creating this Queerness in another person, yanno? It's already there or they wouldn't be having sex with me, just as it was already there in me or I wouldn't have been so wildly in lust with my ex. BUT what I responded to in June's post was the community reaction to the idea that a Femme might--or even could--own the power of sexuality enough to Queer someone. That's the Butch's province according to the unthinking assumptions prevalent in our society; Butches get to claim the toaster ovens for converting/Queering other females, because Butches are most like men and sexuality belongs to men. According to this unconscious idea, Femmes have no right to claim such things--and June ran smack up against that wall.

It was that unthinking masculine/male-centrism in the community that I was responding to.

Does that explain my point better?

[Bit]

It's all good until I read one of your posts backwards, June. Just ask Blush.

[Gemme]

People suspect me all of the time, in regards to being viewed as a threat because I am/was single. *shrug* I think that I have a light-hearted and flirtatious energy about me (most days). I guess some people see that energy as blood-sucking or nest-robbing or whatever kind of energy would seep into their happy little homes and turn things upside down.

I have never overstepped my personal boundaries with someone else's butch. Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't overstepped THEIR personal boundaries. But the truth is, if something like that were to happen, you can't steal another away from someone. They walk, skip or run away on their own. I'd guess it's just pure meanness, fear and insecurity eating away at their trembling little hearts that causes them to feel the need to spew their venom.

I might or might not feel a bit touchy about this topic.

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by Gemme

People suspect me all of the time, in regards to being viewed as a threat because I am/was single. *shrug* I think that I have a light-hearted and flirtatious energy about me (most days). I guess some people see that energy as blood-sucking or nest-robbing or whatever kind of energy would seep into their happy little homes and turn things upside down.

I have never overstepped my personal boundaries with someone else's butch. Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't overstepped THEIR personal boundaries. But the truth is, if something like that were to happen, you can't steal another away from someone. They walk, skip or run away on their own. I'd guess it's just pure meanness, fear and insecurity eating away at their trembling little hearts that causes them to feel the need to spew their venom.

I might or might not feel a bit touchy about this topic.

My sweets, happy homes don't spend time worrying about who their honey is going to be tempted by.

You. Me. Cal. Naked Twister any time!

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

My sweets, happy homes don't spend time worrying about who their honey is going to be tempted by.

You. Me. Cal. Naked Twister any time!

Sorry, I forgot to post it in the sarcasm font.

Really?!?

I am SO up for that if you mean naked as in "wear anything you want as long as it slides well in jello".

<--- not evolved enough to not worry about ass dimples