You Knew You Were a Femme When...

[VintageFemme]

I like this thread. I like reading about all my sisters and the diversity that is femme. And I totally agree with a post I read [I'm sorry I forget which it was] where someone called it an 'essence'. To me that's exactly what it is. While I differ than a lot of everyone posting here in that I am very femme in appearance and mannerisms - and I'm very traditional ofos when it comes to relationships and our roles in them, this thing we call 'femme' is indeed more than clothes, accessories or personal style. It's something you either have or do not have, you are or are not. Again, it is that essence spoken of. I first knew I was femme the moment I fell in love with my first butch. I think that was the moment I also became a woman.

[cuddlyfemme]

I wasn't sure that I was a Femme for awhile. I knew I liked being really femine and was attracted to more masculine women. When I was talking about this to my cousin (who is a Butch), hy pointed out that I was a Femme and explained things to me. I am out but it was easy for me since my cousin was out before I was. Because of my cousin being a Butch, my family automatically thought that all gay people were like hy was and wouldn't believe that I was gay because of that

[The_Lady_Snow]

Anastasia,

Welcome to BFP and this safe space to talk about who and what you are, we are all here for support! You're a strong Femme you'll survive whatever lies ahead!!!

((hugs))

Originally Posted by Anastasia

I am not sure this is where this belongs, but the thread moved me to where I really felt like I had to get this off my chest... I hope I do not offend anyone.

I don't know that I can even say I know I am a femme. When people see me they think straight. When I see me I don't know what I think.
I don't feel gay, I don't feel straight, I don't feel bi, and if I am really honest, I do not know I could define any of those things, much less define something as complex and confusing (to me) as “femme” or “butch.” Based on superficial appearance type criteria and the fact that a lesbian friend of me told me I am femme, that is what I think I am. In day to day life I do not “identify” as anything.

I am hesitant to share this next part because as independent as I like to think I am I do worry about what people will think of me. Here it goes

I am not out.

I chose to disclose this because, for a person that is almost always surrounded by people, I feel pretty alone having no one to talk to about this. The vast majority of my friends are straight and all but one of my lesbian friends think I am straight.

Plus I am here to make friends, not get laid, if I am not honest about who I am how can I expect that to happen? If someone is turned off or offended by my decision, that is their prerogative, and I just say, “Fine. Don’t date me."


The butch thing for me is based on a pretty small sample size. I am honest about the fact I am not out and that leaves me in a pretty small dating pool, limited typically to people that are looking for NSA sex. That is not really my scene, but my life had some dramatic changes about 2 years ago and about 3 months ago I made some decisions that many would condemn me for. As a result, I had my first encounters with women. I have kissed two women (yes, only two total) one was femme and the other was butch (both of these id’s were their own and formed my cursory understanding of these terms based on appearance and attitude)

Before the kisses, I did not know much about either of these women other than the femme was attracted to me and I was attracted to the butch. Kissing the femme did nothing for me and felt awkward (sadly, I did not stop there and she ended up being batshit crazy. The lesson learned: Making decisions with a lonely vagina leads to 60 psychotic emails and texts a day that either started off with “Dear Goddess” or “Dear Heartless Bitch.” Fun times.)

Anyhoo…

Kissing the butch curled my toes, but I had gotten my emotional and psychological teeth kicked in by "the femme" only 3 months before meeting "the butch", so it stayed at only a kiss (ok, so I straddled her lap a bit… did I mention, the toe curling?)

When I see femme women I think, “She is beautiful. I wish I looked like that, walked like that, or dressed like that, etc…”, when I see butch women I think, “She is beautiful. I sure would like her to [censored] and I would sure like to [censored]”

Well, there it is. Any thoughts are appreciated. I have always known I was attracted to women, I just assumed it was something I had to live without. I fucked up and opened Pandora's box and it is all pretty painful and awful right now.

FWIW: If you choose to flame me I think a private message would be best so as to not ruin this great thread. Be warned though, I am tougher than I sound right now.

[*Anya*]

Anastasia, we most certainly will not flame you my dear! Many of us went through our own struggles to not only accept what we are but who we are attracted to.

We all understand how difficult the process is and you don't have to "chose" anything! Most of us found that whatever our "it" is; it chose us.

I too, picked a femme first. Many femmes kiss or fuck or date femmes. No judgment here!

Toe-curling, that's another story. My own true toe-curlers have been butch.

Don't know why, don't care why. It just is. Just like the sun rises and the sun sets or just like I breathe.

Welcome

[LaneyDoll]

Everyone thinks I am straight too. The fact that I tend to have my kids in tow surely has a lot to do with it. But, I am used to it so I really do not even notice.

UNLESS I am in my fave alt bar. Then, it is really obvious and annoying that the only people who will talk to me are little gay boys who want to pet me. lol
I have tried to start conversations with people who were obviously alone-no luck. I am lucky to carry on a chat that last 5 minutes. In the 4 or so years I have been going, I left with a number once-it belonged to the friend of a gay man who was there with her. And he started a conversation with me only because he liked the gay man I was there with.

I am not sure if the people there see me as straight. A lot of my friends tell me that I am intimidating. Honestly I do not know.

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by Anastasia

I am not sure this is where this belongs, but the thread moved me to where I really felt like I had to get this off my chest... I hope I do not offend anyone.

I don't know that I can even say I know I am a femme. When people see me they think straight. When I see me I don't know what I think.
I don't feel gay, I don't feel straight, I don't feel bi, and if I am really honest, I do not know I could define any of those things, much less define something as complex and confusing (to me) as “femme” or “butch.” Based on superficial appearance type criteria and the fact that a lesbian friend of me told me I am femme, that is what I think I am. In day to day life I do not “identify” as anything.

I am hesitant to share this next part because as independent as I like to think I am I do worry about what people will think of me. Here it goes

I am not out.

I chose to disclose this because, for a person that is almost always surrounded by people, I feel pretty alone having no one to talk to about this. The vast majority of my friends are straight and all but one of my lesbian friends think I am straight.

Plus I am here to make friends, not get laid, if I am not honest about who I am how can I expect that to happen? If someone is turned off or offended by my decision, that is their prerogative, and I just say, “Fine. Don’t date me."


The butch thing for me is based on a pretty small sample size. I am honest about the fact I am not out and that leaves me in a pretty small dating pool, limited typically to people that are looking for NSA sex. That is not really my scene, but my life had some dramatic changes about 2 years ago and about 3 months ago I made some decisions that many would condemn me for. As a result, I had my first encounters with women. I have kissed two women (yes, only two total) one was femme and the other was butch (both of these id’s were their own and formed my cursory understanding of these terms based on appearance and attitude)

Before the kisses, I did not know much about either of these women other than the femme was attracted to me and I was attracted to the butch. Kissing the femme did nothing for me and felt awkward (sadly, I did not stop there and she ended up being batshit crazy. The lesson learned: Making decisions with a lonely vagina leads to 60 psychotic emails and texts a day that either started off with “Dear Goddess” or “Dear Heartless Bitch.” Fun times.)

Anyhoo…

Kissing the butch curled my toes, but I had gotten my emotional and psychological teeth kicked in by "the femme" only 3 months before meeting "the butch", so it stayed at only a kiss (ok, so I straddled her lap a bit… did I mention, the toe curling?)

When I see femme women I think, “She is beautiful. I wish I looked like that, walked like that, or dressed like that, etc…”, when I see butch women I think, “She is beautiful. I sure would like her to [censored] and I would sure like to [censored]”

Well, there it is. Any thoughts are appreciated. I have always known I was attracted to women, I just assumed it was something I had to live without. I fucked up and opened Pandora's box and it is all pretty painful and awful right now.

FWIW: If you choose to flame me I think a private message would be best so as to not ruin this great thread. Be warned though, I am tougher than I sound right now.

Okay, here's my flaming.

Ready for it?

Here goes....











Not all butches identify as she. I do realize the one you kissed probably did, hence your connection.










I hope I wasn't too hard on you.

*grin*

We all started somewhere, Anastacia.

Welcome to your journey! I hope it's a happy one.

[Anastasia]

Thank you all. I am actually a little choked up right now (maybe I am not as tough as I thought)

I am so overwhelmed by all of your kindness and understanding. This is unbelievably hard. It was certainly easier to deny when it was an abstract concept and I did not know I preferred women. I find women beautiful and I thought that my attraction to them was just appreciation versus real desire, that all straight women wanted to and fantasized about having sex with women, and had somewhat unnaturally close relationships and attachments to their best female friends, until I felt what I felt kissing her.

Gemme, I had to laugh at your "flame." 1. Thank you and 2. Dear god, I do not even know my own sexuality, I am absolutely lost when it comes to gender identites. I read the threads trying to wrap my head around all of it, but I am still pretty damn ignorant. I do not have tons of lesbian friends (5 good friends and those relationships are based on shared interests. They do not talk to me about their sex life and vice versa.) and I am obviously not in the community so I have not much exposure to the different gender identities.

I have learned a lot about what type of look really gets me going with some of the butch pictures in the member's gallery. Day-um. (That is creepy, right? I probably should not have said that)

Again, thank you all. Despite the fact the post was hard to write, I am very glad I did.

[lettertodaddy]

So. Where are these pictures anyway?

Not that I'm looking. Heavens no.

[Anastasia]

Originally Posted by lettertodaddy

So. Where are these pictures anyway?

Not that I'm looking. Heavens no.

I am telling you, I think the "Random Images" sidebar should be renamed, there is nothing random about it. It picks hot butches to show off. I swear.

All hotties, all the time. Random? Me thinks not.

[Julie]

Welcome to the Planet Anastasia...

I just want to say to you... Everybody has a very different experience coming out. For some people, they walk out and announce it to the world - for others, it is a long process. There is no right or wrong and you may never come out, and that is okay too. This is your journey, your personal journey and if you meet that amazing special butch who curls those toes of yours... Then it will be a joined journey between the two of you and you will figure it out together.

I do not believe there are answers. I believe it will simply be a knowing within yourself. Only you can know who you are inside (not the outside - that is just cosmetics) but the core of your being.

Again, welcome to the site - I hope you find your time here filled with comfort and safety. Here's to a lifelong of toe curling experiences. Ahem... (oh yes I understand).

Julie

[Nat]

I knew I was a femme when I began experimentally pushing myself toward masculine expression.

I knew I was a femme when I imagined a closet full of masculine clothes and found the idea depressing.

I knew I was a femme when I stopped trying to fit my idea of what a femme is - when I accepted and explored the entire spectrum of my gender experience.

I knew I was a femme the first time I heard Dorothy Allison interviewed.

I'm not really concentrating on my identity at the moment as much as i have in the past. I'm reminded often in the course of my life that I'm a femme - but as time goes on I think about it less and less. I shoot for natural, I shoot for authentic, I shoot for self-expression, I shoot for meaning - I stopped shooting for femme once I realized it was a quality I could neither disown nor deny nor could I chase it down. Still I relish the moments I'm recognized as a femme.

[Starbuck]

Hi Anastasia!

to BFP! You will find this to be a very supporting environment to come to as there are oodles of threads to read and discuss all sorts of issues.

I was very impressed with your honesty in your post, it brought back memories of when if when I first came out. See I am what you'd call a "late bloomer" as I didn't come out until the age of 38, married and all! Coming out to my husband was hard but thankfully I had two lesbian friends take me by the hand and teach me about the community...one is now my girlfriend I admit, I'd never just go out alone, that's just the kind of person I am.

I too had a terrible time with self identity. Growing up my parents could always get my brother and I the same toys; I played sports; I was in the Army; I do NOT wear dresses, but I will wear slacks and a nice shirt; I prefer jeans and a t-shirt although I'm starting to wear what my daughter calls "girlie shirts"; I'll wear eye make up on occasion; and I own lots of tools....so for the most part of my life I was a tom boy but now as an adult, I ID as a soft femme (soft meaning not girlie girl) and it's just who I am. We make our own identity, some call it a label, per se, because they don't want to be labeled, and that's okay too!

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough, I hope this helps you or someone else.

[Venus007]

I was raised by a supreme high femme, my grandma, Nicky. Nicky’s femme was full on pin curling her hair every night, always wearing a skirt, house work in heels, “my you look big and strong”, blink blink blink kinda hetro femme. I had some serious issues with it.

Also I wanted to be a boy since I was about, oh as old as you are when you notice there are boys and girls. Boys didn’t have to get pregnant, they could wear pants, and they could be loud, bold, rough and strong and get dirty. They could climb on stuff, drive stuff, go to college, have a job and money. If I were a man, I would go to work in a suit and carry an attaché case, and at the end of the day a beautiful woman in a crinoline with Marcelled hair would meet me at the door to “my castle” with a glass of chocolate milk and a kiss. Or so I dreamt as a 10 year old poor, Holiness Pentecostal kid growing up in Indiana.

I despised the idea of femme because femme meant female and female meant subjugated. When I was in 6th grade , Mr. Jasinski, caught my first girl crush Rachael arguing with Tony, the bully, about feminism and equal rights for women. As I recall Tony’s enlightened 12 year old argument was because men are stronger, richer and therefore smarter they are the obvious leaders of the world. Mr. Jasinski decided that we would hold a formal debate on the issue. Rachael picked me to be her assistant fact finder (oh swoon). We won.

I read Orbach’s “Fat is a Feminist Issue” and “Our Bodies Ourselves”, Rachael’s mom (may Emma Goldberg forever guard her) loaned them to me, among other books and magazines. In my research it was the first time that I saw women who were not subjugated, women who drove big fast cars, women who didn’t have children unless they wanted them, women who went to college and had careers and money, all on their OWN, women loud, bold, rough, strong and dirty. It created a light in me that would continue to shine deep inside even in and through the darkness that was my adolescence.

When I first came out as a lesbian, I think I was 20 or 21, I dressed in the de rigueur androgynous clothing. It didn’t make me feel sexy although it was comfortable and quite capable for whatever I could dish at it.

A year or two later I was, thank Judy Garland’s ghost, taken in by drag queens. Who helped smooth my edges and showed me femininity as displayed in power through old movies. Ballsy dames, femmes’ fatale, cheeky reporters, witty lawyers and news paper columnists - I was smitten. It was like they gave me a secret weapon that was my birthright as a female creature.

I started wearing clothes that made me feel a little too good to be a good girl and I still wanted the girl meeting me in the crinoline at the door.

[msW8ing]

Might be pretty simple but..my first experience was an old school Dyke swept me off my feet, took me parking by the river went chubby dunkin (cuz I am in no way skinny so I don't call it skinny dippin lol) and from that night on I just knew with every fiber of my being I was femme. I didn't know the term back then. But I knew who I was and what I was born to be.

[Sassy]

Originally Posted by Anastasia

I am telling you, I think the "Random Images" sidebar should be renamed, there is nothing random about it. It picks hot butches to show off. I swear.

All hotties, all the time. Random? Me thinks not.

Thanks you for this info and wanders off to find this thread ... Let the ogling begin

[Fancy]

I knew I was most comfortable in my own skin when.... I stopped giving a shit about the labels anyone else tried to identify me by.

[lettertodaddy]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

I understood that I was femme when I had been in my first long-term relationship with a woman (been in many flings before that) and I stumbled on what would now be called a blog of a femme who was talking about her ID, whilst I had been looking up various bit of infomation about tg butch, stone butch and butch. I read the blog and suddenly all the struggles I was having with the lesbian community and my own sexuality made sense. And I wasn't the odd one out, there were others like me. So I claimed the ID and found it gave me all kinds of permission to be queer and myself at the same time.

Do you have a link for the blog? I'd love to read it.

[Silverseastar]

Femme as I see it is energetic. Just like butchness. I have a friend that looks butch but energetically is all femme. I wish I knew exactly what mechanism describes this but it just is. Sometimes I wear "butchy" clothes depending on my mood, sometimes high femme, but I'm always seen and read as a femme.

Femme as I see it does not equal passive, high maintenance, or being a sexual bottom amongst many other stereotypes. But it can still mean those things on an individual level.

I feel my femme energy for myself comes from an internal relationship to my female identity. I'm in love with the womanly energy and parts of me. They feel right to me. I love enhancing those aspects, playing with them, and celebrating them. I feel so deeply female. This does not shift no matter what I do or do not wear. It translates in my body language, movement, and energy that I share with others.

My identity became obvious to me more concretely in reference to my relationship with the butches in my life. We seem to enhance each others gender identity energetically. They seems to see and enjoy my femme as much as I see and enjoy their butch.

[SugarLips]

I think unless you fit a stereotypical picture of what the "societal norm" thinks a lesbian looks like, you will be assumed to be straight.

I don't really think of myself as femme so much as I just am who I am. Others call me femme, and if that's what makes them comfortable, then that's fine. I'm a jeans and t-shirt girl but I love lip gloss and sometimes I grow my hair out to my butt and then I'll cut it all off and regrow it all back...

I bite my nails but love to paint them over and over... I love barettes and earrings and shiny things like a magpie... but I don't think there was a moment that I said, "Oh I'm a femme"... I've just always been me... lol

[1QuirkyKiwi]

As a teen, my first girlfriend had a more masculine energy than I did/have - it was the 80s and the various 'labels' weren't around in small town NZ. She was always more into the activities that boys did, where as I preferred doing the girly things, although, I do have a love for DIY, lol!