To say I loved Lynn Breedlove’s newest book “Lynnee Breedlove's One Freak Show” would be a bit of an understatement, I had to read the thing twice before I could even decide how I wanted to review it! The first time was a quick read in less than 24 hours (I couldn’t put it down), and the second time somewhat slower. My copy of the book is now a mess underlines, and stars and margin notes, combined with my water bottle leaked into my purse and the whole thing got soaked. Which is sort of appropriate for a book that made me incredibly nostalgic for my boyhood- the years I spent shooting T, making zines, wearing carhartts and binders that were only washed every couple of months, and listening to music in punk house basement shows.  Like ‘The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You” this wasn’t a book that spoke to me as a femme so much as it spoke to me as a trans person with a transmasculine adolescence.  It made my past boyhood hard and at attention.

One of the strengths of this book is how it doesn’t take itself or any of us too seriously. One of my favorite sections “Alphabet City” offers us a condensed history of our growing acronym of identities is a fantastic example of Lynn’s talent of making us laugh at ourselves.

I really appreciated the honesty and complexity that Lynn brought to the dilemma of medical transition. As someone who has walked those contradictions, I loved the way that Lynn handled the experience of explaining who we are, regardless of how we do or don’t choose to physically modify our bodies.  The aspect of this I was most drawn to was the way Lynn gave voice to the ways in which many of us actually sculpted our lives and bodies, making them an extension of our art. Furthermore, that this is not something new and that we’re part of a tradition of queers who build lives and bodies in order to live at peace in their skins, like the following excerpt that was written about Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon:

“It was dykes like Del who taught me how to charm the ladies and make a boy with whatever’s lying around the house. Duct tape and some Vaseline. And it was femmes like Phyllis who taught me how to tie a tie, hit the spot (no hands), and wear boxers.  They taught me that we can either hang together or be hanged separately.”

One of the critiques I have for books and stories that could be categorized as trans memoir is the way that we can take ourselves too seriously (something I know I’m guilty of at times) but One Freak Show never fell into that trap- and unapologetically called trannies on our shit which made me love it even more, and consider this a definite must read!

“Dyke, fag, and queer are somewhat assimilated into popular queer jargon, but, because the trans community is the last in the long line of queers to win acceptance even from the LGBT community, if you say tranny, even if you are a tranny, you’ll still get glared at by middle class, educated transfeminist trannies on high alert. So label yourself at your own risk.”

Also, if you’re a femme author, artist or zinester I’d love to review your work for the site! If you’re interested, please shoot me an email at Sassafras@PoMoFreakshow.com

“Leather becomes a metaphor for the spirit, that an individual is more
durable yet flexible, is beautiful and resilient.  In learning to polish boots, you
are learning how to polish your spirit.”
-Lee Harrington Sacred Kink

Normally when I get a book to review, I devour it quickly. I expected this would be the same with Femme's Guide blogger  Lee Harrington’s latest treasure Sacred Kink, but the experience of reading it couldn’t have been more different, to the point where I took so much time, I kept expecting Lee to email me asking if I really was going to review this book!

Sacred Kink was something that I needed to savor. There is so much information, so many ideas, thoughts and experiences taking place within it I was unable to read it for long stretches at a time. Instead I found myself returning multiple, multiple times, sometimes with days in-between in order to let what I was reading digest. As a not particularly spiritual person, but as someone who’s found glimpses of spirituality as their soul has been transformed by leather, this book really spoke to me in ways I hadn’t completely expected.

Lee describes his book as text that dives “into the ways that erotic explorers are tapping into altered states of consciousness, and how to do so with a wide variety of approaches. From negotiation to aftercare, top trances to ordeals, sex magic to pain processing, erotic shape shifting to the spiritual calling of Mastery and Slavery” Which I think is a more accurate summary than I could come up with.

“Sacred Kink” was a book that very much kept me coming back for more, and my physical and very personal journal I write in several times a day, is littered with influential quotes that spoke to me and my life over my weeks of reading the book.

There is certain levity to Lee’s writing that I really appreciated. This is a book that could easily have run the risk of taking itself too seriously for my liking and it didn’t. As many times as I felt my breath catch in my throat with a recognition of the power of how we live and what we do, I found myself touched through laughter at the ways in which awakening can take many different forms “Sometimes it’s just about putting on the Godzilla costume, painting our lover up like the city of Tokyo, and having at it.”

I don’t want to be cliché and say that Sacred Kink has something for everyone, I’m sure it doesn’t. But, if you are someone whose life has been touched by leather, or if you’re kinky and looking to take that a step further, or if your just interested in these topics, I can’t recommend this book enough.

if you’re a femme author, artist or zinester I’d love to review your work for the site! If you’re interested, please shoot me an email at Sassafras@PoMoFreakshow.com

A not so secret fact is that in college I sold dildos and floggers, and helped people find good lube. For retail it was just about the best job that a bearded lady, genderqueer femme, with foot long hot pink and black pigtail hair extensions, piercings, and tattoos could hope for.  It was also a blast because like many people queer or otherwise I love sex toys! I’m one of those people that not only enjoys playing with them, but also knowing more about them, and for that reason I jumped at the chance to review fellow femme Tristan Taormino’s new book “The Big Book Of Sex Toys.”

This book is visually stunning with up close and personal color photography of nearly every sex toy that you can imagine, but this book goes beyond pretty pictures! It features smart and easily digestible information to aid with picking just the right toys to broaden your sex life alone or with partners. This book is definitely something I wish I’d had available to hand to customers!

I have a lot of personal and professional experience with sex toys so I can’t say that I learned a lot of new things here, but the book did offer me a wonderful refresher course, and something I’m happy to have on my bookshelf for reference.  ‘The Big Book of Sex Toys’ is a straightforward non-intimidating book that I would without a doubt recommend to anyone looking for suggestions on picking new toys!

Also, if you’re a femme author, artist or zinester I’d love to review your work for the site! If you’re interested, please shoot me an email at Sassafras@PoMoFreakshow.com

I had intended to write a quick and sexy blog post about having gone to the NYC book release for S. Bear Bergman's newest book "the Nearest Exit May Be Behind You" instead this blog has taken the past couple of days to complete. I was excited about the event, really excited, even though it was in Williamsberg which despite being in the same borough as my Crown Heights apartment is not that easy to get too * ahh Brooklyn * Part of the excitement was that this was the first event my partner and I had been able to attend in 2+ weeks since we came down with the dreaded h1n1 (aka swine flu).  I was excited to be out, and feeling better, and I had a new bright red dress to wear for the occasion- which coincidentally made me look a little more like a tarty self than I would have optimally gone for at the co-op owners meeting in our building we needed to attend before heading out. but I digress- leave it to a femme to make the story all about the outfit

The reading was really good. I saw friends, I laughed, I nodded, I was hailed by stories of queer kinship, and romance, and love, and of course we bought the book.  The next morning I plopped down on the train for my 1.5 hour commute to my day job and started reading. I read all the way to work, and then at the end of the day I read all the way home. And then I got up this morning and started reading again on my way into work. I'm liking the book a lot more today than I did yesterday which is interesting and  complicated. A lot of it is to do with the grand irony of my life. Despite being someone whose life and career have been built around change---- I absolutely despise it.

Reading Bear's first book "Butch is a Noun" made me feel treasured by a broader queer community as a femme, and for whatever reason I was expecting the same thing with this book, which really isn't fair to anyone especially Bear. I of all people should know that gender & sexuality changes with time there are dozens of my zines collecting dust on peoples bookshelves, or in punk houses or in the Queer Zine Archive--- most of which were written when I was living as a trans guy. How would I feel if someone picked up my book and pouted because my gender or sexuality had shifted since they'd read my zines???

  Needless to say, that realization has left me a lot to think about.  So far (and for honesty's sake I've still got about a 1/3 to go the book has hailed me much more as a trans person than as a femme. At this point I feel like I need to clarify that I view femme as being gender transgressive as when I lived as a butch, or when I lived as a trans man. But- so far anyway, it's brought up a lot of gendered memories that aren't on first glance connected with femme for me.

I loved and hated the first 50 pages all at the same time, and really could not figure out how to wrap my head and heart around it. After all, this is a book (and a well written one at that) which is exploring one persons experiences with all kinds of things that I spend lots of time thinking and writing about as well. I know part of what made me uncomfortable (which admittedly is sort of fucked up on my part) is that Bear has been divorced since the last book. There is no logical reason why this impacted me so profoundly, other than favorite queer couple friends of ours just divorced, and I've been feeling a little bit tender in places since that happened, so that is part of what was going on for me. But mostly, I just came into the book expecting to again being hailed as a femme, and left feeling  like I got the wind knocked out of me as a tranny.

Like any good book The Nearest Exit has left me questioning a lot of things, myself, gender, sexuality, and why I of all people struggle with the thoughts of those things shifting. I've been quoted as saying that my gender has always been a journey and not a destination, and my uneasiness with reading Bear say that ze isn't sure ze's a butch anymore clearly hit a tender spot for me. What if someday I come to say I'm not femme anymore? I don't picture that happening, but then again I didn't think I'd stop being boi identified either. I feel more at home as a femme than I ever have, but part of that means giving myself the space to say that this is where I am for now. It's where I plan to stay for a long time but someday my queeredfemininity could channel in a different direction, I don't picture giving up lipstick and dresses, but it could happen, and that's hard for me to think about because after all I don't handle change well, but something this book has brought up for me.

one of the things that I really enjoyed in Bear's book is the unabashed faggatry.  Sitting on the train I've found little smiles creeping across my face as I read a squishy passage of little faggy moments of romance because I too remember that. My partner and I were fags when we got together, not in a factory direct sort of way but very much queer/dyke/faggy trans kids.  A few months ago a  friend mentioned in passing to Kestryl that our energy as a couple had a quality to it she hadn't been able to pinpoint for a long time, and then she realized that in addition to the butch/femme connection we're also a little faggy--- and it's so true we're all kinds of queer and I loved seeing some of that squishy romance on the page before me.

"The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You" wasn't what I was expecting, but it has left me with a lot to think about and was a great read. I don't agree with everything Bear asserts about butchness, or about gender but the vast majority of it hit the nail on the head for me. I devoured this book, finishing it on my commute home last night. I loved the honesty and humor with which the stories explore the pain and pleasure that is living life as a trans person- the fears of being sick and having to go to the hospital, the joys of being read as queer even if you don't know what kind of queer you are being seen as, love letters, laughter, and tears.  Gender & sexuality is a journey, I know this as well as anyone, and yet even I sometimes get stuck and need a reminder, and this book gave me that. Perhaps the best way to end this review (other than to tell you to buy this book right away- which I think you all should) is with the words Bear inscribed in the copy that Kestryl and I bought  "thanks fellow travelers. Enjoy the journey"   - I'd send that same sentiment back at Bear, I'm glad that ze's also out there doing this work, and even though the book was not exactly what I had expected, I'm really glad I read it. I keep finding that sometimes the books that turn out to be completely different than we expect are the best ones.

me with my very own copy of the Cripping Femme Zine!!!

I was so pleased when I opened my mailbox last Thursday evening after a long day at work and found that my very own copy of the Cripping Femme Zine had arrived!!!  Edited by my good femme friend Leslie Freeman it contains the perspectives of 10 self identified queerly feminine folks.  Alas, I had a deadline the next day for my Curve column so I couldn’t start reading it until I’d edited and fact checked that so I placed the zine on the coffee table and let it tease me for a few hours.  A few hours later I was able to crack it open and was not disappointed!

The Cripping Femme Zine which describes itself as “by and for queerly feminine folks with dis/abilities”  though not the most aesthetically beautiful zine I’ve ever seen, but the intensity, honesty, and beauty of the writing easily more than makes up for that.

As a femme with disabilities  it was a pleasure to get the chance to sit and read a collection of pieces all by queerly feminine folks who had really smart, sexy, important, complicated, challenging, exciting, inspiring, and innovative things to say about their own experiences with disability, community response, accessibility, and the intersectionality of identity.
The zine (which is accompanied by a CD audio zine) is available for purchase at indy bookstores like Food for Thought in Amherst MA, and Bluestockings in NYC but you can also get it directly from the lovely Leslie who can be reached at: efemmera@yahoo.com.  This is a definite must read for folks interested in the diversity of femme community, dis/ability community, and the intersections between them.

Also, if you’re a femme author or zinester I’d love to review your work for the site! If you’re interested, please shoot me an email at Sassafras@PoMoFreakshow.com

I read Leslea Newman's 'The Femme Mystique'  for the first time many years ago.  Reading it came at a pivotal point for me.  I'd just begun exploring femininity and what it meant to me, if it meant anything to me. I remember checking it out of my university’s library reading it half heartedly and on the whole not being very impressed. I didn’t identify with most of what I was reading. The passages didn’t fit my conception of femme and I struggled to see myself within it’s pages.

Last week I purchased my own copy of the book. Lingering in the back of my mind was the memory that it hadn’t spoken to me, and yet I found a cheap used copy online, and decided that regardless of how much I did or didn’t love the book – it was one that I should own.

Since it’s arrived I haven’t been able to put it down. I feel hailed by this book in ways that I previously didn’t, and reading it has been like discovering a new friend who you spend hours talking with shocked you haven't been friends before now. Maybe it’s age, or time, or  just that I’m in the right place to hear it now but I’m really glad I’m reading this book again. I love the sensuality of it, the talk of passing, of being the partner of a butch, of what it means to pass together, to love, to fuck, to build a life and a family. Bellow is one of my favorite passages:

“My desire, my passion comes from being femme to your butch, comes from knowing my power over you and yours over me. it comes from looking at your handsome beauty, at the width of your shoulders and the cut of your hair. It comes from feeling your hands on my neck, on my mouth, on my arms, ever insistent. It comes from feeling that my curves- my lips, my breasts, my hips, my ass--- are there to meet your hardness, there to make you wild in your need for me. it comes from knowing the constant craving I feel, the boldness with which I make my needs known. It keeps me excited, wet, on the edge, waiting to be pushed or to throw myself over.”

- Debra Bercuvitz ‘ Stand by Your Man’

how about all of you- do you have femme books for whom your perspective of has changed over time?

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

"So now I am writing myself down, sketching directions so that I can be found, or followed. The word for you is butch. Remember this word. It will be used against you."
-Ivan Coyote

For those who know me it's no secret that one of my favorite storytellers of all time is Ivan Coyote. Thus, I'm sure it's no surprise that this week when Ivan's "A Butch Roadmap' began circulating the internet I was enthralled. As a femme who loves butches I was thrilled to see a new piece of writing that gave voice to the complexities of butch identity, and challenges the way that butches get the shit kicked out of their hearts by a community they built and now resents their visibility and strength.

The piece has so many good lines. I tried to start pulling just a few of my favorites but realized that was becoming silly, and that really, if you are a butch loving femme you've got to read this. It's just such a well done discussion of butchness, chivalry, the cultural implications of butch masculinity and giving butches the freedom to do things like crochet. I especially love that it doesn't admonish those butches like my partner who pass as men but rather knows that they are part of the diversity of butchness. On of the things I adore about Ivan's storytelling style in general that comes through so well in this piece is the smoothness with which words are used. It's almost as though they are being led around a dance floor instead of a page.

It was really nice to read a piece like this, because I was actually right in the middle of starting the planning process to write a blog about a really horrific video that I found up on the Velvet Park magazine website. The video is called "Femme Coffee" and features some femme buddies talking about why they love "masculine woman".

I was trying to directly embed the video but it appears that there is a problem with Velvet Park's code that is preventing it from working so to see the video you have to go to the Velvet Park website and on the right side of the videos you will see different titles and can select "femme coffee."

The video is frightening to me for a number of reasons, firstly as a femme with disabilities I'm honestly shocked and appalled that any of the women on the film would say the word "retarded" and feel that was an appropriate word to use to express their discontentment with the ways in which butch/femme dynamics are understood by mainstream culture to be modeled after heterosexuality. Furthermore, I was utterly horrified by the complete lack of understanding they appeared to have about which butches are. This short little video podcast claims to be making a case for gender being constructed, and performed but really does nothing but box in butches and femmes into small boxes that I'm honestly shocked anyone is supporting in 2009.

At one point in the film the women talk about how they believe there are "almost no butch women because the culture of butchness is to be trans," and how they think that in 2009 butch is looked at "as a stopping point on the way to trans." Now clearly this is their experience and perspective, which they are allowed to have, but at the same time it's no wonder that this is there experience when they are so unwilling to understand butchness as a transgressive identity that means different things to different people. Instead they seem content to box butches in with some pretty hefty stereotypes, including completely silencing any possibility of trans butches. I think this notion of a butch and FTM "border war" is absolutely absurd. The boundaries have never been clear-cut as people like the women in this film would like everyone to believe.

Essentially the crux of all their arguments are that so many of the butches they see lack non misogynistic role models, and thus their masculinity is based on that oppressive paradigm.

All that says to me is that clearly these femmes know the wrong butches!

Today was a day filled with a little bit of procrastination. I mean I did go to the laundry mat, and did a few other odds and ends around the apartment but for the most part I kicked back a little bit, which is probably good because things are a little busy in my world.  This week is the borough pride for my gay4pay job, which also coincides with our annual cultural festival, so it will be a long week at work; my publisher and I are in the final stages of completing edits to the manuscript for my anthology, oh! and most exciting of all my partner Kestryl and I are in the process of trying to buy our first home! It’s a gorgeous apartment that I won’t jinx by talking about too extensively here; just know that we are crossing our fingers really tightly that things work out on this.

Anyway, this evening I sat down before dinner and flipped through the most recent issue of Curve magazine.  My complementary contributor issue arrived in the mail earlier in the week but to be honest I hadn’t even had a chance to flip through it yet.  As I flipped past my article on lesbian doggie daycare owners, an adorable tiny dog in a dress and a lovely femme leaning over to dance with it first caught my eye!  This of course meant that I needed to look at the actual article, which to my utter delight was titled “10 Things Femmes Wish You Knew”!!!

The article wasn’t without problems, but was on the whole quite enjoyable and I found myself laughing, and thus disrupting Kestryl’s reading of  ‘House of Leaves’ more than once-- Whoops!

My favorite part of the article was
“We have one dog (and no cats), because we’re more like gay men…Also, our dogs tend to be on the smaller side. Because if we had a big Rottweiler-Shepherd mix, we’d have to go running with it or do something else that might make us break a sweat.”
LMAO.
Now I should clarify that Kestryl and I share our home with two cats (who I adore) and my service dog (who is a tiny little femme thing).  It’s not that I don’t love our cats to pieces, it’s just that I’m much more of a dog person, and it’s not that I don’t adore big dogs (I used to train and compete in dog sports with dogs of all sorts of sizes) but, as the 10 things say, there is a very very special place in my heart for the tiny femme dogs.

I figured that a blog post talking about dogs should be accented by a photography of my very own Mercury ---who for the occasion is sporting my favorite hat that I debuted for the Femmethology release event here in NYC.
Beyond being my angle there is something extra fun about sharing your home with a dog every bit as femme as you are. It used to make all of our animal rights activist friends squirm with discomfort when they would come into our home and see him parading around in little dresses that is until they actually met him.  Mercury is by far the femmest dog you will ever meet. He LOVES getting dressed, and will of his own accord go and bring you outfits if he thinks it’s time to have clothes on. But like most femmes he’s more than a pretty dress, and can get down to business with the big dogs.  His favorite dog park friends are big gnarly dogs, and he also knows when it’s time to get serious and work. Like every other femme I know, he just happens to know that getting down to business can be accompanied by good fashion

Back to Curve:
The rest of the article included things like: ‘We’re always right’ and ‘We want you to think we’re pretty.’ In my case the latter is always true, and the former usually accurate

There were a few more contentious parts including “We are bottoms. Period.” And whatever you’re doing in bed, do more.” This is 110% true for me, though I do know that there are femme tops in the world.
The article also mentions
“Please don’t hate us if we try to get you to cut your mullet. Or buy clothes in the women’s department. We’re not trying to change you----really. Ok, maybe a little, but not to the point of discomfort. You don’t have to wear cute shoes.”

Ummmm no.  I like my butches and transmasculine folks thank you.  I also like them wearing whatever makes them feel comfortable and can’t imagine even suggesting that they should be wearing women’s clothes unless that’s what they feel comfortable in.  I also have a  (not so) secret love of mullets, but only on middle-aged dykes, the whole hipster dyke mullet trend can go away as far as I’m concerned.

Anyway, all in all it was an enjoyable read, and seemed like a great excuse to introduce you to Mercury  :  )

Cross-posted on Femme Fagette here.

Femme–an identity that has caused controversy, celebration and ridicule–is now the topic of a two-volume set from Homofactus Press and editor Jennifer Clare Burke titled Visible: A Femmethology. Femmethology calls the LGBTQI community on its own prejudice and celebrates the diversity of individual femmes. Award-winning authors, spoken-word artists, and totally new voices come together to challenge conventional ideas of how disability, class, nationality, race, aesthetics, sexual orientation, gender identity and body type intersect with each contributor’s concrete notion of femmedom. - from femmethology.com

This month of April marks something I've been waiting for quite some time: the Femmethology virtual blog tour! Today is lucky enough to be my day, and so I'm sharing some of my feelings and insights related to the Femmethology. Visit Daphne Gottlieb tomorrow for her day, and all the sites at the bottom of the post on their days.

First, a little about the Femmethology:
Visible: A Femmethology

Femmethology is essential—a roadmap of Femme Nation, an index, an anthropology, a manifesto, and a googleology. - Dorothy Allison

Visible: a Femmethology is a two-volume anthology of essays revolving around femme identity.

I've been discovering and embracing my multigendered identity lately, but in that multigendered identity there is a solidly femme identity as well, which these books helped me remember.

Not that I had forgotten my femme identity, I just had been focusing more consciously on my fagette identity than my femme because it was new and in a way easier to focus on because it's more visible (though only slightly). The identities in no way are opposites, they are complimentary, but they are also different. Reading through the Femmethology in a way re-connected me with my femme identity.

The biggest benefit of the Femmethology, in my opinion, is that it helps remind us that we are not alone as femmes. While some of us have many femme friends and a wonderful support system the rest of us do not and we have to navigate the world without much reassurance and reminders that there are so many of us out there feeling the same things. This is one of the reasons I started The Femme's Guide in the first place, to emphasize that there are many of us out there, and while we're all different we are also all the same.

I was moved many times throughout the two volumes. There were authors I knew well or moderately well, from various avenues such as Sinclair Sexsmith, Sassafras Lowrey, and Tara Hardy. There were many other authors that I didn't know anything about, but I was able to get to know something about them through their stories.

Many stories touched me to the core, rocked me, and left me dazed and contemplating my own stories and my own identities.

I feel that Visible: A Femmethology is not just a book or anthology meant to be read, though it certainly is that as well, it's also a look into each of these femme's lives and voices, an adventure into different types of femme-ininity and different experiences that all somehow are similar because of this identity we all embrace and inhabit. It shows the vastness of femme while also showing what unites us.

It screamed "you are not alone" to me right when I needed it.

From the Introduction to the anthology: "Femme means I won’t compromise on complexity. ... Above all, my femme is not your femme, which is the good news. ... Femme means my sexuality, my partner choices, my definitions and my gender presentation might not match your labels."

You can order Volume 1 and Volume 2 through the fabulous Homofactus Press.

You can also hear Sinclair Sexsmith reading his Love Letter to Femmes!

Check out the blogs below on the associated dates to learn more about the Femmethology volumes:
4/1. Sugarbutch Chronicles
4/2. Ellie Lumpesse
4/3. Queer-o-mat
4/4. CyDy Blog
4/6. Catalina Loves
4/7. cross-post: The Femme’s Guide and Femme Fagette
4/8. Daphne Gottlieb
4/9. Bilerico Project
4/10. Screaming Lemur: Femme-inism and Other Things
4/13. The Femme Hinterland
4/14. Bochinche Bilingüe: Borderlands Writing and The Vagina Adventures
4/15. Dorothy Surrenders
4/16. Miss Avarice Speaks Her Mind
4/17. The Femme Show
4/19. Sexuality Happens
4/20. Queer Fat Femme
4/21. Sublimefemme Unbound
4/22. Tina-cious.com and Jess I Am (butch-femme couple day!)
4/23. FemmeIsMyGender
4/24. The Lesbian Lifestyle
4/25. Femme Fluff
4/26. Weldable Cookies
4/27. The Verbosery
4/28. A Consuming Desire and Creative Xicana
4/29. Queercents
4/30. en|Gender

Technorati Tags: anthology, art, body, book, books, butch, CommUNITY, definitions, fagette, femme, femme identity, femmes, gender, gender presentation, identities, labels, lgbt, multigendered, queer, sexuality, Sinclair Sexsmith