Salon de Femme--aut delectare aut prodesse est

[Semantics]

This is a great topic and I've really enjoyed reading everyone's contributions so far.

Originally Posted by Arwen

You hit on something I was thinking about on my drive home.

Am I femme because I am attracted to butch energy.

And my end thought was no/yes. No, I am not femme simply because I am attracted to butches. Yes, I am femme because butches just do it for me. But I would still be femme even if there were no butches in the world.

I'd just be lonelier, but still femme. I would not change who I am.

I hate to define myself as I relate to another person, but I've often wondered how much of the femme in me is in part defined by my deep need for a certain kind of counterpart.

But, as you said, I would still be femme if there were no butches in the world.


It took me a long time to embrace the identity of femme. To decide and feel for myself what the term actually meant to me personally.
In the beginning, I had to take "femme" and separate it from everything I despise about how society in general uses emphasized femininity to perpetuate male domination over women. That was a personal struggle.

Somehow my life inside the queer community made me feel powerful enough to embrace my femme self and to define myself in a way that I'm comfortable with. I think, in part, it was being around butches who also thumbed their noses at society’s norms. It was also from being around other femmes who took the power to define for themselves. Here, in this community, I don’t have to reject the girlyness that makes me feel less powerful in broader society. Here, being a femme doesn’t assign me to a lower status.

Being a femme has given me the power to be as feminine on the outside as I feel on the inside and not feel disadvantaged.

I'm a femme in my little black dress.
I'm a femme in my soccer mom get up.
I'd still be a femme if I decided to dress up in my lover's men's jeans, boots, and button up flannel shirts.