Amazing Press! Go Us!

Metroline, Connecticut’s LGBT paper says the Femme Show workshop was one of the five most attended at True Colors!

Five Most Attended Sessions

• Dreaming Big With Momma, led by Big Momma: a motivativation lecture of how youth can reach for their goals. (needed to be held outside due to the 100+ attendants)

• The Femme Show, led by Havala Backus and Maggie Cee: a look at femme and feminist identities

• Dude, where’s my gay films, led by Alberto Ciseuntos: an exploration of�queer cinema, stereotypes and rating discriminations

• Beyond Binaries, led by Robyn Ochs: a look at the gender variance that does not fit the social gender binary M or F.

• America’s Next Top GSA, led by Shiera Chandler and Holiday Simmons: an instructional lecture on how to�be a successful�GSA leader and member.

15th Annual Event Shows “True Colors”, by Kristal Barnes. [Metroline Online]

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T Shirts!

It’s spring in Boston! It’s opening day for the Red Socks and there’s free ice cream at JP licks. Your friendly neighborhood webmaster and I had a picnic lunch on the common.

You know what else spring means – time for new clothes, and not just for femmes, for everybody! You open your drawers and realize that all your t-shirts are sweat stained and full of holes. What to do? Buy a femme show shirt, of course!

These American Apparel shirts are available in all sizes in two styles for all kinds of genders!

Proceeds help us bring the Femme Show to folks near and far.

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Why my feet hurt*

On Thursday the lovely folks at Emerson College and Emerson’s Alliance for Gay Lesbians and Everyone (aka EAGLE) hosted our first ever college show!

I decided to take pictures of my feet as they went through various stages of footwear and foot care in the show. I forgot to include my street shoes before and afterwards, just imagine knee-high boots at the beginning and end of this sequence.

warming up: 2 pointe shoes

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As a femme I think a lot about sex…

As a femme I think a lot about sex, furthermore my attachment to sex appeal feels intimately (pun intended) tied to my identity as a femme. After all, the fact that we are even having sex week here at the femme show, means that I’m defiantly not alone in this. In many ways I think that people in the queer community associate femmes with sexuality, maybe it’s the corsets, or the stockings, heels, or makeup that tends to make people associate femmes with sex, or maybe it’s others that femmes in general simply exude sex appeal.

Even though femmes are conceptualized as very sexual beings (sometimes by others, and often by ourselves) there are a lot of stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding what that means or looks like.Frequently and historically sexual femmes have been assumed to be submissive. This is particularly the case for those of us who sexually, and romantically partner with butches. In recent years, though, I have also seen a considerable movement within the femme community to combat that stereotype and to showcase the idea that femmes are as sexually diverse as everyone else, that there are those of us who are sexually submissive just as there are those who are sexually dominant, along with femmes who fall everywhere in between those two poles.

While this increase in the awareness of femme sexual diversity has been exciting and powerful, allowing dominant femmes (and submissive butches) to emerge proudly from the shadows, something that I celebrate in some instances, I also feel a backlash that has been so strong that it has effectively silenced, or shamed femmes who are sexually submissive. There is a tremendous pressure to be dominating, to defy these “norms” but for some of us that is a path we could never choose. Sexual submissiveness is seen as weakness circa “butch in the streets, femme in the sheets.” It’s something to be ashamed of, and something which one should always try to keep private. I always have been, and always will be, sexually submissive.

I also consider myself to be “stone-sexual,” which means that I am nearly exclusively attracted to stone energy, and specifically stone masculinity. There is such a misunderstanding of what it means to be attracted to stoneness, femmes who are discredited as being “frigid” or unwilling to please our lovers, rather one needs to take into account that perhaps we find our pleasure in different ways. My sexuality will never be clean, simple, or easily explained. The sex I crave will never be pretty, or quiet, and neither will my femininity. In its own way the sex that I have is spiritual, an exchange of energy, a dance and connection which exists as something bigger than flesh, and beyond the confines of the body, and for me that is intimately tied to my gender identity as a femme.

I believe that within the femme community there is room for greater diversity of sexuality just as there world be within any other portion of our community. As much as the next person, I want to see dominant femmes be seen and heard, and to have their unique sexuality be celebrated. It’s just important to me that the experiences of submissive femmes not be lost in the process. There is a great beauty and strength, which comes through submission, like femme, it is frequently dismissed and misunderstood.

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Lace, Desire, and Being Seen

I like lingerie.  I like slips, matching tops and bottoms, garters, stockings and corsets.  I’m sure you’re shocked and amazed by that statement – “Femme has large collection of undergarments – news at 11!”

I’m telling you this because I think there’s more going on here than an affinity for lace, shiny fabrics, and turning every occasion into a dress up party. I think the lingerie thing (I hate that word, it sounds kind of pretentious to me) is about my need to be seen and how it interacts with my sexuality and my gender. Read the rest of this entry »

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