Alright femmes, i know my last blog about manicure trends went over really well! Lots of folks had opinions about it, and I think that the general consensus was that "no"  paying money to get your nails done with intentional chips is not a look most femmes are into getting behind.

This morning I came across another facebook post this morning from Sahara Dunes whose the media co-chair for next year's Femmes of Color Symposium in New Oreleans. When I followed the link, I knew that it was something  i simply had to share with you!

Bella Sugar recently posted a roundup of impressive nail art. I'm not one for fake nails---haven't worn them since 7th grade, but I know lots of femmes who do, a fiend of mine was even looking into learning how to do this sort of nail art sculpting a few years ago---this reminds me I should check back with her on that and see if she's made anything cool yet!  Anyway, the nails in that post were super  fun to look at, even if not something I would wear!

They go from the super outlandish:

to ones more on the tame side and along the lines of stuff i see pretty regularly here in NYC-- like this zebra stripped with hot pink and jewls set

So what about you, would you wear thse? do you wear fake nails? Which design is your favorite?

The other day I was leaving my usual teahouse after visiting with an old friend from my first high school. A couple of ladies struck up a conversation with me about the baby blanket I had been knitting. I explained that it was a gift to a young man whom I had originally met when we were both "camp counselors" for youth group missionary trips with my former missions organization. He is now a very well respect leader at the base where he lives in Barbados. His family is very young, they are only just now having their first child, a son. As I was telling the younger woman about some of the events and workshops that my teahouse hosts, she asked if there were any "religious" slant to any of them. Assuming that she feels the same way I do about the danger of religious fundamentalism of any sort, I assured her that the workshops were simply informational. "Because, you know, it's not good to fill your mind with such things," she said. Instantly, I realized my mistake and I remembered all the things that my mother taught me as a child about the dangers of allowing yourself to become aware of other people's cultures or religions. Mom taught me that it poisons the mind. Perhaps that is true for some Christians. Perhaps they can only be pure when they are unaware. The funny thing is that my "missionary training" actually made me more open to other cultures. It made me see that God, the great spirit that unites us all, can be found in many forms and many venues. I found that all truth is true, regardless of its origin.

But I'm frustrated by my reaction. She asked if I went to church, and I fumbled for the words to say... "uhm... I'm uh... I'm sort of in between churches right now." And I'll probably be like that for awhile the way things go.

I'm frustrated that I did not suggest to them that I sometimes go to the MCC (which I do). I'm frustrated that I didn't say, well actually I am differently spiritual, now that I came out as a lesbian and left my mission work to others who will do it with much more passion than I can do anymore. I'm angry that I didn't say, "I'm gay, now whatcha gonna do about that?" But sometimes much more care and tenderness is required in gently opening the minds of people who are unaware of the beautiful diversity that exists in the world. I wanted to be the one to tell her that she doesn't have to be afraid of the unknown. But it wasn't my time.

She didn't even know she was speaking to a queer. I feel like that's a problem, yet I don't know that I would ever have had a connection with her if she knew...femme invisibility.

I'm sorry I've been neglecting you for so long, my darling. It's not something I meant to do, but there have been many changes in my life recently and, to be honest, I'm worried about the safeness of your space. This is something I need to remedy, but I haven't had the drive to do so. I've also been going through a lot of changes in regard to my gender, and while femme definitely fits me I'm trying to figure out how to express the gender-fluid femme boi that I have inside of me, not only physically but also through writing.

I've also been thinking about ways to change you, especially as you've just turned one year old. I want to make you more of a community resource, as that was the idea all along, but I've been thinking of better ways to do that. I'm going to start sharing you with more people, something I know you will like as well, allowing people to submit their own posts to be published instead of limiting the publishing to a distinct few.

I want to see more diversity on you, though I've been saying that from the beginning I haven't done a lot to support it. Although we do have a bit of diversity among the authors it is not enough for me.

My comment policy is also something I've been working on for a while. I need you to be a safe space, both for myself and others to express our feelings without worry of mean comments. Respective constructive comments, sure, but downright offensive or mean ones will not be tolerated. I mean to create something like Kate Harding's comment policy for you, but I haven't gotten around to it.

I want to add more pictures to your layout as well, an idea I had when I first started working on this layout with it's rotating images to the left, but something I haven't put much into practice. (If you reading this have an image you would like to see there please send it to femmesguide AT gmail.com.)

So, TFG, while I know I've been neglecting you I've also been thinking a lot about you, but have been distracted by other projects and my own thing, just as Bevin talked about. It's not you, it's me, promise, but I'm trying to get better at writing.

Happy Birthday!

Yours,
Scarlet Lotus

Technorati Tags: changes, femme, gender, images, layout

Cross-posted from my review site. It's super long, and there are lots and lots of screenshots (below the cut), apologies if it's too long for anyone, but hopefully it's at least easy to skim.

Hard Love & How to Fuck in High Heels is a two-for-the-price-of-one DVD from Jackie Strano and Shar Rednour by their production company S.I.R. Video Productions. It was the 2001 AVN Winner of Best All-Girl Feature and is a DVD I've been lusting after for almost that long.

I remember walking into the Babeland here in Seattle many many years ago and seeing a display of queer porn including this DVD and one of their other productions Sugar High Glitter City (review coming soon). Immediately I was drawn to it, a budding femme at the time, and I longed to buy it but I was broke at the time. It's been on my mind many times since that day so long ago, but I never got around to picking it up, until now.

I've only recently become aware of the many wonderful porn companies out there who are, as S.I.R. Video proudly proclaims, "100% dyke produced." My other two porn reviews are of similarly queer productions and I enjoyed them immensely.

Shar Rednour wrote the book on femme (quite literally in fact--she wrote The Femme's Guide to the Universe) so I knew these movies would be full of butch/femme goodness, and I was not disappointed. Both films were very much butch/femme based, and How to Fuck in High Heels shows us femme in a way that's unusual to see (but not unusual to happen): Shar Rednour is the ultimate femme top.

In both Hard Love and How to Fuck in High Heels all the dildos are made by Vixen Creations, and when we watched it Marla and I were trying to figure out which toy was which. Some of them look specially made in gorgeous marbled colors like pink and black, teal, brown, and black (which is gorgeous), and blue and white; others are solid colors like black and hot pink.

Also, gloves are used for digital penetration, dental dams are used for oral sex, and condoms are used for anal penetration, which is wonderful to see in any porn.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: babeland, butch, butch/femme, butches, dyke, femme, femmes, images, Movies, porn, queer, review, Reviews, sex

Oh Femme's Guide. I've been so delinquent posting. Mostly I started seeing less and less of you when I got it on with my own blog and then... well, you all know how the New Relationship Energy goes. You forget about the other blog for awhile. But I haven't forgotten about you, I'm still here, just not finding new content to post here. It's a dilemma, for sure. How do you make the old group blog feel special while still devoting your attention to your new primary?

However, I did just start a new blog feature which I am super excited about sharing. Yeah, yeah, this is totally like taking your old date on a double date with your new partner. It's true. But let's just be open and poly about it and I'm sure you'll like this. Agreed? HussyRed will totally back me up on this.

In the last few months, I have read and heard a lot of musings about Femme that begin with sentences like "There's an unspoken expectation that Femme means consumerism" and "Femme is more than how many labelwhore handbags you own" and on and on about how Femme is so much more than spending money.

I find statements like this troubling. Partially because I think when people make arguments against "unspoken" anything, they're making assumptions, usually out of insecurity. Assumptions and insecurity are the kryptonite of community building and connections. I also find it annoying because I think it's falling into the WASPy* notion that we can't or shouldn't talk about money.**

The part of being Femme that I've found to be the most rewarding are the DIY*** aspects of putting yourself together. I haven't known any other way to be Femme.

When I came into Femme, I came into it knowing lots of people who shared their resources. When I compliment someone on their make-up, for example, usually I get a response like "Thanks! It's MAC blah blah blah" or "It's wet n wild blah blah blah can you believe it?" Or if they didn't offer where they bought something, and I wanted to know, I'd just ask. I've never had anyone bristle at the question and it's been a great way to piece together my sense of style.

As fat girls, especially, since plus size clothes are so much harder to find than clothes under size 14, it's always been my fat femme sisters who told me where to find things, how to modify things to fit, how to wear things to make them flattering, and most importantly, how much stuff costs!

Femme cannot be bought. Period. But the process of putting together a style that makes you feel comfortable in your skin does sometimes take some scrapiness and bargain shopping. I love bargain shopping--I call it Femme Hunting. Half the time the process of getting together an outfit is fun in and of itself.

So it is in this spirit of opening dialogue about Femme Hunting that I present my new blog series: Girl You Look Expensive****. I'll find a fierce fat femme, interview her about her outfit and post it here. The idea is how you can look fierce and fashionable without spending a lot of money.

My top was free. Like, really, really free. It's a t-shirt that I got at a Divabetics event at ReDress and then altered. My skirt is from Torrid via ReDress and was, like, $9. My shoes are glitter peeptoe flats and were a whopping $5 on sale at Payless. My bangle and ring are cheapie H&M. My earrings were $12 and are the most expensive piece in this ensemble. I bought them from a fierce young Black womyn artist on 125th Street in Harlem.

There are folk who are constantly talking about how femmes are totally materialistic and into consumerism and how it's rare and special for a femme to have a budget, be eco-friendly, diy-fierce, or even poor. That idea is really classist, all on its own. It makes the assumption that all femmes have the resources and income and desire to spend small fortunes on their wardrobes. It makes the assumption that femmes who have fierce things spend a bunch to become that fierce. Untrue.

I am lucky that I live in New York City and have cheap and fashionable clothing resources available to me. As a femme of Color, I also have a shit ton of pressure imposed upon me to dress and carry myself in a certain way (clean and poised). I have the privilege to dress as funky as I want, have natural hair, and still be seen as human in the POC and queer communities. Julia Starkey's essay "Fatness and Uplift" is a great resource about the cultural standards imposed on Black womy/en, especially when we are fat. Read it.

I also refuse to judge other femme's priorities. Most of the Femmes With Money that I know are super humble and generous. And crafty and aware of their privilege.

I have a great balance of cheap and pricier items in my wardrobe. My friends and I don't brag about how much our fierce crap costs or about silly brands, that just isn't how our community works.

Places I love to shop because I'm young, fierce, fat, and poor:

ReDress NYC (Duh! Fierce fierce FIERCE)
AJ Wright (Great deals on handbags, shoes, and dresses!)
GirlProps (Cheap and cute accesories)
Etsy.com (Handmade goodies, totally worth $1 or $100)
H&M (I'm fat, but I swear by their jewelery and I know lots of plus size folk who can fit into their stuff)
Payless (But only during BOGO)
DSW (I love the purple sale tags....)

Taureret is starting a Radical Fatshion Zine. There's a group on FaceBook if you are interested in joining and donating your skills!

*Defined by urban dictionary here. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=waspy
**In this society, as women, as queers, as folks who don't have access to making a lot of money, it is really important that we get rid of the tendency not to talk about how we manage our money or how we make our money. A lot of us just don't have skills or weren't raised in households where we were taught how to do that, or know any other way but living paycheck to paycheck. Let's be real, a lot of us don't have the option of doing anything but living paycheck to paycheck, but even some of us who do have an abundance don't know how to manage it. When you have to get creative with money, that's when having an open dialogue with community members is really helpful--about bargains, work arounds, making do and mending.
***Do it Yourself.
****Named for Jenna Riot's AWESOME song of the same name. http://www.myspace.com/jennariotmusic

Technorati Tags: activism, Bevin Branlandingham, clothing, coming into femme, Craft, fashion, fat, fatshion, femme, femme clothing, femme identity, femme sharks, femmes, gender presentation, money, nyc, people of color, queer, queer fat femmes, real life, sewing, size, size acceptance, thrift, what femme is

There are lots of different sorts of femmes, there are the birds in London I first learned about from the pages of Femmes of Power (such a good book, you can read my review of it here ), and the Fierce Femme Sharks, but now I present to you, The Femme Dinosaurs!

Last night I changed my status update as a joke to saying that I was a “dinosaur sort of femme.”  I’m pretty obsessed with dinosaurs and didn’t think much about it, until I got several responses from friends wanting a definition, which of course got me thinking about performance of gender and femmeness. Then, I had several friends say it resonated with them as well and that they also were dinosaur sort of femmes, which got me thinking even more about what this category meant.

I bring you the very rough beginnings of defining who we are as Dinosaur Femmes

The (very rough beginnings of) the Dinosaur Femme Definition:

Dinosaur femmes are the queerly feminine who have an affinity for the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous
Dinosaur femmes are big and stompy and don’t take shit from anyone.
Dinosaur femmes redefine the definition of beautiful.
Dinosaur femmes know that claws are important.
Dinosaur femmes aren’t afraid to eat whatever we want, whenever we want.
Dinosaur femmes bite the heads off people who accuse them of being outdated for their love of aprons, heels, and makeup
Dinosaur femmes know that their gender like everyone else’s is constructed, and performed.
Dinosaur femmes know they are something outside the gender binary, and that "woman" as a category can’t quite cover them.
Dinosaur femmes are ferocious, and fight for our communities.
Dinosaur femmes make their own families, and then guard them well
Dinosaur femmes can be hard to get to know, they are loaners who play at being extroverts
Dinosaur femmes keep their heart protected until they know they can trust you.
Dinosaur femmes are bigger than life.
Dinosaur femmes know where they come from and have a strong respect and appreciation for queer history, and make noise so it won’t be forgotten

is the femme dino identity something you could get behind? if so, what sort of dino would you be?

For example, my Australian Femme Friend Madeleine Lynch got into the idea and said"I like the idea of a velociraptor femme because I'm someone who flags black on the left dangerous and elegant and vicious appeals to me..."

“In an attempt at visibility, I tattooed the word “femme” on my fingers. Alone in my kitchen, I traced the word with the charcoal end of a burnt rosemary stem and pricked the letters into my skin with tiny needles. I burned honey insense in honor of the femmes who have walked before me, those who walk with me, and those to come. “
-Miel Rose from the piece “Prayer” in volume one of ‘Visible: A Femmethology”

When I first read this line in the femmethology, and later when I heard Miel read it at our NYC release  of the book I felt hailed. In general I’m fascinated by the ways that many queer folks (myself included) use tattoos and other body mods to mark journeys, and identities visibly on our flesh. I’m especially interested when those choosing to be marked identify as femmes.Essentially all my tattoos fall into two different categories- the dog ones (where were written about by the Bark magazine last year) and my queer ones.

My queer tattoos include a black triangle, a trans symbol, a tattoo that symbolizes gender fluidity/queerness, my “paradox” tattoo, an anchor for my adopted dyke moms, two intertwined circles that my partner and I both have to symbolize our relationship, and now as of this spring a femme tattoo : )

I spent a long time thinking about what would be the  right tattoo to symbolize my journey to queered femininity. I’ve been planning what I call my “little femme sleeve” for a few years. These little darlings (Olivia, Eloise, Fancy Nancy, and the Velveteen Rabbit) will be incorporated onto my left arm (which already featured a black triangle and a stylized portrait of my dog. My favorite little femme is Olivia, and so of course it made sense that she be the first part of my storybook femme tattoos.

my olivia tattoo in the tattoo parlor right after I got her

Last winter Essin’ Em wrote a really great blog about her process of getting her femme spiral tattoo and what that meant to her as a femme, and since getting my Olivia, I’ve been thinking a lot about the different and beautiful femme tattoos that I’ve been seeing. A couple of years ago my friend Lisa got her femme tattoo- a heart shaped rainbow lock (her butch partner has a matching key that says butch), and just a week ago my friend Melissa got a femme tattoo on her back.

For me, tattooing is a very important and sacred experience, having a tattoo that is very much about celebrating femmeness feels incredibly appropriate, and just *right * in so many ways. I’ve been planning this tattoo for so long, and having my journey to femme represented in ink, flesh, and blood is an important commemoration of this journey.

What about you? Do you have a femme tattoo? Have you thought about getting one? If you have one or have thought of getting one, what do you think you would get?