I've ranted and raged and complained that Lesbian erotica isn't given a chance by publishers offering "LGBT" novels, who really just mean that they represent "G" erotica, and FINALLY, Finally, got my book Heart of Change accepted by Samhain Publishing. It came out in ebook March 23 and is coming out in print in May...(Thank you Samhain for giving "L" a chance!)

And you know, I've never paid much attention to the Top Ten Erotica List...until HEART OF CHANGE hit number THREE on the Top Ten Erotica List at My Bookstore and More...now I'm obsessed...

And...oh no! Today it dropped to fifth place...it's going the wrong way! So I checked out who is outselling my baby and found a naughty rewrite of The Secretary, different name, different author, and *gasp* an incest novel...eek! I can understand the bdsm office play outdoing my story, but incest? Really?

I'm really hoping my fans will BUY Heart of Change as an ebook this week! Help me to stay on the Top Ten List...knocking the incest novel out of the way is purely optional*wink*

There is also an excerpt if you click the link, so check it out:)

For those of you who have read my earlier posts griping about publishers who claim to publish LGBT and who do indeed provide their readers with the G ... but rarely if ever any LBor T ... I am finished complaining. At least for now.
Why?
Because I finally found a publisher willing to take a chance and I will have my first (L) being released in March...originally as an ebook but a few months later in print. My Femme character Simone Sinclair is finally going to have life breathed into her. Call me wickedly thrilled.
The publisher is Samhain Publishing and I am very excited by the publicity this up and coming publisher is getting, so cross your fingers that HEART OF CHANGE will do well and will open doors for me to get more of my lesbian work published.
So for today, my bitching and moaning is over and I am celebrating.

Here is the quick tag:

No yesterday's Cinderella story here, Simone is a self-made woman who thought she needed a man to make her dreams come true and discovers no man is required especially when the woman chasing her heart is strapped on and knows how to use it!

And the longer blurb:

True love hides where you least suspect it.

After the truth comes out about her age, forty-something porn star Simone Sinclair is handed her walking papers, ending a career that has become more extreme sport than art form. The final straw is her long-time partner’s idea to start their own international studio with a marriage proposal tossed in to sweeten the deal. After two decades of waiting for him to deliver the white picket fence, it’s not exactly the offer she was expecting.

Torn between three dreams—a post-retirement career, a family, or lasting love—Simone retreats to get her head on straight, coming to one conclusion. She can’t have everything. But two out of three is worse than nothing at all…

I hope you're intrigued enough to support me in my effort to get lesbian erotica out in the mainstream world! Spread the word about HEART OF CHANGE because the more copies I sell, the more likely Samhain Publishing will be to represent the WIP I'm currently working on, tentatively titled Frankie's Garage. A while back I posted a small snippet of Frankies character in this post.
I love my character Frankie Marlow, a hot butch with a New York attitude who takes her small hometown by storm when she return's to run her daddy's garage...

I'll let you know how my efforts pan out... in the meantime, keep your eyes open for HEART OF CHANGE:)

Technorati Tags: erotica, lesbian erotica, sex positive

So, I'm off on a bit of a rant...again...about how impossible it is for me to get my Lesbian Erotica and Female Bisexual Erotic published. You may remember my previous rants:
Well, Screw That People
Writing Lesbian Erotica...
(I'm getting quite tired of complaining so hopefully you will forgive this one last instance)

Most of you who know who I am also realize I am multi-published in erotica (I'm not making enough moolah to make the mortgage, but the car payment is officially covered...) and that I usually write BDSM erotica of the M/F or M/M or M/M/F variety. But no one usually asks about my F/F stuff, which BTW is piling up like last weeks laundry. There's a shitload of it on my harddrive...
Unsold.
Unpublished.
Enough to make me want to cry.

I also have a stack of wonderful rejection letters, mainly in the form of revision requests, asking me to make my F/F story a M/F, just change the gender, right, it's still the same story...
Who in the hell said that? Yeah, that would be one of my editors.

The other big request has been that if I insist on keeping it F/F, at least add a man...make it a menage...because menage sells...granted M/M/F menage sells better, so if I could just turn one of the F into a M and then make it a menage...

Seriously.
This is what I deal with. Every. Day.

Here's an excerpt from today's rejection letter: "The work was very well written, and I enjoyed reading the sexual elements, straight and lesbian. All were very well done. However, the work on balance is not a good fit for our erotic romance profile."

This time I was not asked for a revision, so I have no way of knowing whether they would have liked it better if I'd menage'd it or M/F'd it, but I would almost bet cold hard cash that it was one or the other.

I said I wasn't going to cave under pressure...but today I am leaning toward an avalanche. I think I'm going to menage PornStar which is a story so near and dear to my heart, I want to have sex with both F/F's in the story...and I desperately want it published.
Sadly, there is also a hunky ex, very alpha male in the story I'd also have sex with...but only if I got to wear the strap on because I think he's a real jerk who needs it up the a** a time or three...but who my other editors love so much they want him in on part of the action. Dear Goddess, I cannot believe I am even considering it...

Here is the ONLY reason I am considering it...
I want my F/F writing read. Period. If a menage scene or two will get it read I'm closer than I was yesterday to selling a full F/F manuscript. Yeah, yeah, I know...there are lesbian publisher's out there. But they won't even consider looking at PornStar because my heroine is Bisexual and does it with the hunky ex...

There's my rant for the day...please support Lesbian and Female Bisexual Fiction by buying!
Buy lots!
Prove there is a market.

*Want to thank Calico for allowing me to use this photo I found at Callico's Gallery earlier today! And BTW I also saw she asked a very interesting question over at Filthy Gorgeous Things, an awesome ezine if you haven't already checked it out...

Technorati Tags: bisexual, erotica, lesbian erotica, rant

So, it's no secret that I write erotica, mostly BDSM based, and I thought I made it fairly clear in my first two to three published works that sexual preference and gender identity was part of what made my writing work. I was wrong. Today I sent a chapter to one of my critique partners to read and we had to have a thirty minute conversation over the word genderqueer used in my heroine's thought process...and why couldn't I just say that she was butch, or a bull dyke, or -- or -- or --

I've never really left my critique partner at a lack of words before, frustrated yes...but stuck like a scratched record, no.
And I've never been comfortable with the using the word bull dyke so I'm not going to use it in my writing...although I'm really not certain if my heroine would be comfortable using it. Maybe she would.

Explaining what the word meant took longer than it should have even though the work was self explanatory as to what I meant by genderqueer. She just didn't get it, didn't really want to understand it. Finally she asked, "So, like what, are you switching genres?"

My brain screeched to a complete stop.

What?
I write erotica.

Yes, but --

I write erotica. If I can write multiple renditions of M/M/F and F/F/M ménage link-ups, M/M and M/F couple hook-ups, and even a M to F transgender scene and not ruffle her feathers in the slightest...all acceptable as being within the genre of erotica... why did writing a F/F scene totally fly outside that scope? And it isn't just my critique partner, I'm finding it at publishing houses as well. I will not get on my GLBT soapbox that if you say you offer GLBT that little L second letter over means LESBIAN = F/F. Nope. Gonna. Stay. Off. That. Soapbox.

Tonight I put a note up on my facebook looking for readers comfortable with lesbian material...
I'm sad. Very sad.

Here's a small excerpt so you can see the context:

I met her at Will’s Hardware. I was trying to find the right screws to hang a sheet of drywall in the garage and she was looking at nails. Actually she was reading the side of a small box intently and, when she glanced up to see me, blushed eight shades of red. I smiled. I couldn’t help it, she being so cute, so blonde, all blue eyes and dimples. I wondered why she was blushing so hard but then she said, “You’re Frankie, the new mechanic, right?”

That explained it. She’d heard the rumors all ready. Nice. I’m the newest freak show in town and everybody has heard the gossip. Its okay, I knew it would be hard being the only openly genderqueer for about two hundred miles…at least to the nearest real town. Houston. There had to be at least one butch there, right?

“Guilty.” I answered, “I’m Frankie Marlow and yes, I am everything you’ve heard and probably more.”

Batting her eyes, she blushed a little deeper and smiled. It had been a long time since a woman gained my full attention with just a smile. I decided she was absolutely adorable. I’d been hit on by straight girls plenty of times, mainly girls who were just looking for a little thrill, who sidled up to the bar where I was nursing a whisky and assumed their cup-size and a wink would get them into my bed if not my heart. So, I wasn’t beyond taking a straight girl to my bed, even knowing it would lead to heartbreak; most love does.

I was scrolling through the Femme's Guide Archive, seeing what I've missed over the year...trying to get inspired...and I realized there wasn't a single post tagged to highlight the social network FetLife...and that just seemed...wrong!

So I am here to amend that oversight because I am totally in love with this social networking site. Think Myspace. Think Facebook. Then add into it a space that actually allows you to be yourself. Seriously. Not to take anything away from their tagline, because it actually reads, ""FetLife is a social utility, like Facebook and mySpace, designed specifically for the BDSM & fetish community and run by sexual deviants. We think it is more fun that way. Don't you?"

I do! I do!

Sign me up, Johnny!

(Actually a lovely Canadian, John Baku, really is the mad genius behind the scenes.)

(Hmmm, I wonder if he would spank me if he knew I was calling him Johnny?)

I know some of my friends who have been saying for months that they will join when they are certain it is going to be around awhile...I wasn't one of those people. I stumbled across them 320 days ago and joined the same day. They were two months old give or take and I think I visited every single persons individual page in short order...there just weren't that many people. I didn't care...there were people there that I could talk kink with...and wouldn't care that I was a bisexual, femme, switch who mostly topped girls but liked to bottom for boys. BTW they even understood my language! I was in heaven...

Three hundred and twenty days later, there are more people than I can keep up with, coming from the U.S. Canada, Australia, over 50 European countries, Asia, and Africa. Kinky people are flocking to FetLife...and for good reason:

Imagine a place that gives you choices of gender when you sign up: Male, Female, Trans M-F, Trans F-M, Gender Fluid, Gender Queer, Intersex.

Or a place that asks you to define your sexual orientation: Straight, Heteroflexible, Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Queer, Pansexual, or Fluctuating/Evolving...(and here, my only complaint is that I'm not given a choice for Femme or Butch, but then there would be a need for Dyke, Boi, Futch...I'm beginning to see why they leave it as lesbian...besides, there is an "About Me" section where I can tell everyone exactly who I am, what I want, need, desire...etc...and trust me, members get fairly explicit. Nice.)

Finally, they ask to define your role: Dominant, Switch, Submissive, Master, Mistress, Slave, Top, Bottom, Fetishist, Kinkster, Sadist, Masochist, Sadomasochist, Vanilla, Not Applicable, or Unsure. (Honestly, I get the "Unsure" but "Not Applicable"? Mind boggling.)

It only takes a few minutes to register...and like any social networking site I think deciding on a login name is the hardest part. I've never been very good with cutsie names...I mean can you see me as *"FuzziSmittenKitten" or *"LoveToSuck"...me either. I chose "Roxy_Harte." Just me. Not that I don't REALLY get a kick out of reading other people's names. Because I do. Some members have chosen really kick-ass names. I wish I was that creative...

I love FetLife so much, that a few months ago I became a Greeter...

Oh, I didn't tell you about that part...

When I joined Fetlife, John Baku personally greeted me...although at the time, I'm not certain that I realized that he was the mad genius behind the scenes...I did realize that he was greeting me in an official capacity though. And that wowed me. Because it didn't seem like a form letter. But maybe it was, because I admit to being slightly jaded and mostly skeptical...I replied to his greeting...and guess what? He replied back! He really was an honest to goodness person behind the avatar.

That stuck with me...and now, as a Greeter...I try to make every person I greet feel welcome...and let them know that FetLife is about the living, breathing people behind the avatars. And that we are all kinky...

Think you are too kinky? Too weird to be welcomed?

Or maybe not kinky enough?

Toss those worries aside...everyone is respected for their kinks, for their fetishes.

And disrespecting a fetish isn't tolerated because it takes a lot of bravery to come out of the kink closet...FetLife is a place where you honestly can be yourself...and for some people I'm learning, it is the only place...

Groups? Did you ask about groups? Sure there are groups and lively discussions too...scarily intelligent, insightful conversations too...

I tried to limit myself to five groups...and failed...I think I've joined twenty now...It was really just too hard keeping myself limited like that, my interests are too many and too varied. Some of the more active groups I've joined are: Androminetophilia Transmen, Butches, Bois (and those who love them); BDSM Poets and Writers From Around The World; BDSM Theory; Bisexual Masters, Mistresses, Subs, or Slaves; Breath Play; Butch/Femme Queers; Edge Play; Kinky and Geeky; and Mental BDSM...

That doesn't even scratch the surface of interests, so you will have to check it out for yourself to find you niche.

So, if you are in the mood to add some kink to your new year, come out of the kink closet this year, share your kink this year, or just find some old kinky friends (because they've probably beat you there)...stop in, say hello...there are a lot of people waiting to meet You!

www.fetlife.com

*As of this posting there was no Fetlife member with the login FuzziSmittenKitten or LoveToSuck...so feel free to use if you so desire...and if anyone chooses either of these names after this posting without previous knowledge of this post...I meant no disrespect.

Technorati Tags: FetLife

Find the Pink or Deep Rose Gigi along with other vibrators and sex toys of every flavor on SexToy.Com.

Much thanks to SexToy.Com for letting me review the LELO Gigi!

Technorati Tags: lelo, review, sex, sex toy, sex toys, sextoy.com, toys, vibrator, vibrators

I haven't blogged at the Femme's Guide in awhile and I apologize for that...life got a little too intense and the fallout from that has caused weeks to slip by unnoticed. I woke from my funk when a friend asked the other day if I was "ready for the holidays?"

Holidays?
From my fog, I repeated the question...Holidays?...and then I had that "oh shit" moment. Yeah, holidays...as in, I hadn't shopped, hadn't decorated, and hadn't planned any parties.

Now, I can honestly say that as a writer, I have often lost track of time...not quite dementia...but pretty damn close. It's just the strange reality that I live in...I'm here, I'm not; I'm me, I'm someone else for awhile (being a fictional character for awhile can be quite liberating by the way.) It can also be a marvelous escape when life is getting a little too insane and too hectic, which mine was...

So, now, I'm back and in horror realized that not only is it seven days until Yule and ten until Christmas...and I am totally out of time. Last night I cleaned, decorated, made a shopping lists (presents, grocery and spirits) until the wee hours of what is today. My teenage daughter (who is 17 and referred to on all my blogs as Beautiful Girl) was wide eyed and thrilled. She knew at some point the decorations would go up but she's also learned that the current Work-In-Progress must be completed first (it isn't but I'm hopeful to have it submitted to my editor by December 31st.) My husband doesn't understand the panic...he doesn't see the reason for all the hoopla...(he was christened "Sir Hotness" on a blog two years ago by a reader...and much to his chagrin, the name has stuck.)

So Sir Hotness and Beautiful Girl watched as a whirlwind transformed our normally cluttered living room into a magic winter wonderland.

Later, Sir Hotness asked, "Why?" as in, "Why the panic?" And I explained that we are nothing without our rituals (traditions) because they bring order, peace, and magic to our lives...and even though he understands that...he still doesn't understand my panic.

I think a lot of my angst comes from being raised by a Betty-Crocker mom, who even though it was the seventies, approached her home and family duties as if it was still 1954. She wore a frilly apron in the kitchen that coordinated with the seasons and holidays as they came and went. She cooked real food, not from a box or microwave every meal. And there is no level of household cleaning that could stand up to her level of clean so I've never bothered trying...lol...but honestly, my life and my lifestyle don't demand it; however, the holidays do. Is that insane? Try explaining it to a husband who really enjoys his laid-back wife.

Our conversation really opened my eyes to a few things...

I miss the big family get-togethers of my youth where grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins all gathered...and I try to recreate that insanity with family/friend gatherings. There is just something about having a house full of people with little in common...the catching up from year to year...the noisy chatter! I miss my cousin Mark...the first man I had ever heard called "gay" and not knowing what that meant, only that the older adults talked about him in hushed tones...and then one year another cousin explained to me what "gay" meant...and I managed to silence the table when I asked if Aunt Laura was "gay" too...I might have been young, but Aunt Laura stood out as a fairly "different" kind of girl...she was a Marine, she cussed in public...and she never married.

Isn't it funny the stuff that stands out from the past?

What we remember? What we choose to forget?

Now, it seems surreal that my oldest daughter tells her babies that they are going to grandma's house...and that is ME! I'm too young to be a matriarch...and what does that mean anyway? In part I think it means that I am the keeper of traditions...the person who reminds everyone else...of the way it used to be. I realized that I am the only living person who knows who my mother was...her family tree...her stories...I need to write things down, find old pictures, and put it together...a scrapbook for each daughter...and that seems like a very big job...not one I'll complete by this Yule...but hopefully for next Yule. But this year, I can share a story or two because it's important that my daughters and granddaughters know where the "holiday plates" and "good silver" came from (my great-grandmother's who used good china and silver for every meal)...and why I drag out the antique stuff for the holidays and no other time...maybe it's important to know that the butterscotch pie made for Christmas dinner is the same recipe passed from her as well...and that her "English name" was Sarah...and that her Cherokee name was lost with the passage of time....

I love butterscotch pie.

Have you ever tried to find butterscotch pie around town? No one makes it. Hardly anyone has ever heard of it. Butterscotch pie was the most important pie during the holiday...trumping the more standard pumpkin, sweet potatoe, or pecan...

My mother would always get mad at my grandmother for indulging me with a slice still warm from the oven (because it hadn't "set" properly and the filling would run...supposedly ruining the pie...Yes, I was a little spoiled...and yes, I cut that first piece for myself sometimes, while it is hot...and watch the filling run into the empty space...not because I'm spoiling myself, but to remember my mother's voice...and that of my grandmother's...

I don't know if it all matters or not, but for right now, for me, having recently left the fog of my other fictional world, it seems I should be doing something to keep established family traditions rooted in the minds of my daughters, while keeping the rituals we've created together in place as well...

To all of you, who have read to the bottom of this post, I wish you Happy Holidays...

And I'll share the Butterscotch Pie recipe here...I rarely bake but this is one recipe that I do well...and it makes a generous amount of filling (for a large deep pie shell or enough for a small pie and several cups of pudding):

Butterscotch Pie

Make your pie crust first and bake it so that it is ready to fill as soon as the butterscotch filling is ready. Here's the basic ingredients for the crust:

• 2 cp flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2/3 cp shortening

Here's the important part: Sift together the flour and salt...no one sifts anymore...cut in the shortening with a knife or pastry cutter, you can also mash it together with a fork until it resembles grains, add just enough ICE-COLD water to bind it together (2 tbl but no more than 1/3 cup...just sprinkle as you knead until it just barely holds together)...refrigerate dough for one hour...

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sprinkle flour on flat surface and roll out the pastry. Press into place in prepared pan, trim edges, pinch to "decorate". Prick crust with fork. Line shell with parchment paper and fill with rice to keep shell from forming bubble. (Rice is not damaged and can be reused.) Bake for 12 minutes. Remove rice and paper...bake empty shell an additional 6 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool on wire rack.

Now you are ready for the filling:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine following seven ingredients in a heavy bottomed pan or a double boiler. Cook over a medium heat, stirring (I use a wooden spoon) until thick. (It will take awhile, don't get anxious and turn up the heat...and when you think it is thickening, don't get into too big of a hurry, let it get as thick as a rich pudding)

• 1 1/2 cp light brown sugar
• 10 tbs flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 cps milk
• 6 beaten egg yolks (set aside the whites for meringue, keep refrigerated)
• 4 tbs butter
• 2 tsp real vanilla

Pour filling into pie crust. While the filling is still very hot it is time to make the meringue...do not fear meringue...trust me, this is the easy part!

• 6 egg whites
• 6 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs powdered sugar
• pinch salt
• 2 tsp vanilla

Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add sugars, salt and vanilla, beating well...peaks should form. Spread the meringue over the filling, starting at the crust edges (slightly overlapping the crust) and fill toward the center, mounding slightly higher in the center. Bake for 5-7 minutes or until meringue is light golden brown.

Technorati Tags: Holiday, memories, recipe

I've been wanted to learn to rock climb for two decades...there was only one thing standing in my way and it was a doozie...fear of heights, as in a standard ladder was too much to conquer for normal household maintenance (like screwing in a light bulb.) I know, insane.

When I met my hubby the only thought that went through my head was sex. (I was horny the minute I met him.) The second thought that went through my head was kink (of course) because I refused to be in another vanilla relationship. Having passed both tests, I proceeded to first date where I was astonished to learn that he was an avid rock climber (or as avid as a man can be with a full time job/mortgage responsibilities which is honestly a big bonus because since meeting him, I've met several men and women who consider climbing the only thing of importance, shunning relationships, jobs, and mortgages in favor of traveling from cliff to cliff with nothing more than their shoes, rope, and tent.) So meeting him, really seemed too good to be true...

I thought...he'll teach me to rock climb...

In the past two years since that first date, I've mentioned on several occasions that I wanted to learn to climb but it seemed I was destined to be the belay slave (the one who holds the rope and adjusts the rope tension as the climber climbs) for the rest of my life because of my FEAR.

Last weekend that all changed. Hubby flew in (btw he's been mostly gone since August 3rd for business) for a week's vacation to celebrate Samhain with me. I surprised him by signing us up for a weekend membership at a rock climbing gym. He was less than enthused since he's seen my paralyzing fear in action and once had to rescue me from a three foot step ladder but he went along on the adventure stoically hopeful that the day would end without any hysterics on my part...

But, I was prepared...mentally...in addition to meditating for weeks, focused on abandoning my fear of heights, I whipped out my most powerful persona...my Femme Fatale...and I dressed for the occasion: color-coordinated yoga pants and athletic top, full make-up, bouncy ponytail. I lotioned my shoulders and arms with wonderfully scented, luminous lotion (okay, slightly glittery) that made my shoulders look like there might actually be some muscle there and I wore full make-up;)

I felt smoking hot.
I felt strong...no, make that invincible as we drove to the gym...

I climbed a thirty-five foot beginner wall without even considering the height factor. It was wonderful. I surprised everyone, including myself, because when I looked down and waved at my hubby and daughter, I knew I'd really conquered my fear.

On Monday, he flew out again...
I went back to the climbing gym and signed up for a month's membership for my daughter and myself...(it's also been a major stress reliever but I will not even bother to get started on my personal life insanity) and in the few days since...I've climbed every day, even if only for an hour. I'm challenging myself on routes that I know are physically over my head and quite a bit higher than that first climb...but I'm sooo psyched. I even bought two climbing magazines so I could start learning terminology (not realizing in advance that almost every single article has a reference to sex...who knew?) and where the best outdoor places are to go for a beginner climber. Sure, I could wait and ask hubby because he already knows...but I really want to do the research myself.

Hubby has no idea that he'll be coming home to a crag slut:)

Technorati Tags: Femme Fatale, Rock Climbing

Somewhere along the line, someone pointed out to me that I was too Femme for my own good. At the time I wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving the house without full makeup… Manicure…
And Pedicure.
I mean even in winter, the boots and socks have to come off at some point. Right?
At the time, I snickered and didn’t give it much thought.

Years later, I was told in a group setting by a well meaning lesbian friend that I needed to “Give up the charade” that I was just a “cunt-tease and nothing more unless I made a committed effort to come out of the closet and give up men forever” because in her words “bisexuality is a myth.” Everyone except me laughed…

Whatever.

But that statement made me shirk labels for years. It was no one’s business whether I was straight, or bi, or lesbian. Or so I thought…but maybe that single statement made me withdraw from a group of women who until that moment had been a source of comfort because they'd accepted me for who I was.

I like to think I know who I am…and since I am a creature who is always growing, changing, evolving…I don’t let labels play a big part of creating who I am. Sure, some labels are necessary; they help us communicate to a certain level of who we are. Today, I’m willing to own a few labels that help identify me: Woman, Female, Wife, Mother, Bisexual, Femme...

But does that mean I can’t step out of the role sometimes?

Roles.

Are we all just role-playing?
Some days, it seems that way. That we are all playing some weird form of dress-up to get across the point of who we are, without saying the words.

A few days ago I came downstairs wearing a consensual-partner-beater, jeans, and my biker boots. I didn’t think about it. I woke up. I got dressed. Came down for breakfast. My husband said, “Wow, we’re feeling a little dyke today.” Of course my first response was, “We are?” But then, after breakfast was cleared, I looked in the mirror. I’d neglected to put on makeup, my hair was in a tight pony-tail, and as in 90% of the time, my wallet and cell phone were in the right hip pocket.

I did an about face and went back upstairs. It bothered me that he saw me that way…too.

Maybe it had just been an excruciatingly long week and I was really too tired to go to the trouble to straighten my hair, put on makeup, and choose a color coordinated outfit…

Or maybe something else was going on. Maybe I’m tiring of wearing my Femme label all of the time. After all, my twenty-three year old daughter had told me only a few days earlier that I was “getting a little too dyke all of a sudden”. What in the hell does that mean anyway? Then the next day, I had a very cute, very femme young blonde in my lap, whispering in my ear all of the terribly naughty things she wanted me to do to her…and in the moment I really didn’t feel very femme at all…

Upstairs, I pulled on a tiny black cropped leather jacket over the white tank, exchanged my biker boots for sexy high heeled black boots, and threw on big hoop earrings and a long necklace. I straightened my hair and applied make-up. When I came back down, I demanded, “Are we still feeling a little dyke today?”

My husband swallowed, shook his head, and managed, “Femme fatale?”

I smiled and said, “You better fucking believe the Fatale part…if one more person says I’m trying too hard to be dyke…”

He grabbed me and kissed me. He said, “I like it when you’re dyke. The girls I catch looking at you when we are out like it too.”

Why was everyone but me noticing that I’ve been less and less femme…and why does it matter, if it matters at all that I “look” butch today or femme? I’m still the same person when I look in the mirror...

And maybe that’s the problem. I am still the same person who hates labels. I don’t want to be trapped into behaving one way or another by a word. Whether I am dressed in heels with make-up or wear my biker boots with a freshly scrubbed face, the bottom line is that my thoughts, feelings, ideas don’t change…I am still who I am. A bisexual woman, mostly femme, but also highly connected to her inner boi.

The thing is, that day, with my husband, I noticed something. When I have my makeup on and I’m wearing heels…I walk a certain way…I smile and tease a certain way…I feel sexy but in a girly way. I try harder to catch the attention of girls who can only be labeled as butch…I’m bolder. Compare that to when I am not dressed femme. I feel tougher, stronger. I swagger more. I smirk more. And I try to not be noticed and by trying to not be noticed, I inevitably am…

But does that mean that if I chose to clip my hair and wear my biker books every day, I’d start feeling less femme? Or if I only wore my stilettos and stockings, cute dresses and makeup, I might actually start to carry a purse? Trust me, the answer to both is no.

I’ve been doing some people watching ever since my own hard look in the mirror…women who dress exclusively butch…and women who dress exclusively femme…even women who are so androgynous that neither butch or femme seems to be an adequate description…and I started to wonder…if we are becoming so determined to express ourselves that we dress a certain way every single day…even when we might want to dress a different way…to fit into another’s definition of a label we’ve accepted for ourselves…are we repressing ourselves and stifling our own unique personalities in deference to what we think others (need) to see in us?

I’ve already admitted to being guilty of this…pulling out my Femme Fatale when all I really wanted to do was spend the day in my comfy biker boots sans makeup…and it wasn’t really even to make someone else happy…just to throw off a label. But all I did was exchange one label for another…so did I gain anything that day? Knowledge, a new look at myself and how whether if I like it or not the labels I've accepted ownership of do define me...
But I've also gleaned the insight that I am willing to defy convention (convention being the assumed labels we apply to ourselves and allow others to apply.)

I want to be who I am any minute of any day. I want to be able to look in the mirror and see “me” not the person someone else expects to see. And from now on...that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Technorati Tags: butches, definitions, fashion, femme, gender presentation, labels

Last week I went to a party...A Gigglefest...and trust me, I had a very good time but something happened that night that has left me thinking...a lot...about all of the rules I have created for myself...

I'm forty-four years old; isn't it time I throw out some of the old rules with yesterday's trash? And then with that thought immediately follows the chastisement from the little bitch dressed in white sitting on my right shoulder, "Don't even think about it."

Sigh.

Thank goddess I have that nasty little she-devil all dressed in red sitting on my left shoulder, shouting, "You go girl!"

By now, you, my reader, are probably as thoroughly as confused as I am...

Here was my dilemma, seeing that I was at a party with forty amazing, beautiful women...and hooking up with one of them seemed to be a probability...

There was lots of giggling...and jiggling...and flirting going on. I got to dance with a woman who I really like and admire (she once asked me to have her baby and I still regret not doing so...after dancing, we shared a few drinks and talked at length about that decision and how it has affected both of our lives. Okay, we got drunk together...and I felt a lot worse about the decision.)

Hours later, I got to hug and snuggle and kiss a beautiful woman who until that night had just been a passing flirtation...

And then sometime later, okay...much later...sitting by a campfire, listening to the sweet music of some of the women who had brought their drums...I tried to figure out just why I wasn't somewhere private and naked with either of the first two women...and ended up with a third woman in my lap.

Did I say woman?

Oh sweet goddess...

Rephrase that to girl...soft, sexy, waist length blonde hair billowing around us in a sexy, sweet scented cloud. And I was in lust up to my eyeballs (Did I forget to mention that in her own innocent way she'd been trying to hook-up all evening?)

Twenty-two and plenty legal but soooo off limits because of my damn rules...

I have a rule about the girls and bois I get involved with...they can't be more than fifteen years younger than me. Why? Good question and one I really don't seem to have an answer for except for the fact that one of my ex-husbands was fifteen years older than me and that seemed acceptable...whereas if there had been more than fifteen years between us that would have been somehow...unacceptable.

I've been plenty tempted to break that rule in the past and so I amended with a clause that if tempted, I might be swayed, but I would never enjoy the favors of anyone younger than my daughters...there, that would keep me safe for a good long time. I definitely wouldn't break that rule, right? That would just be too gross being with someone younger than any of my daughters...

And then the beauty in my lap kissed me.

Wow.

She rocked my world and then some...I won't bore you with the details of what followed but I was good (okay, I was as reasonably well behaved as I could be with a luscious beauty in my lap intent on hooking up)...in the end I politely declined an invitation to join her somewhere more private...

And I was left to stare into the fire...binding myself with mental ropes to keep myself from chasing her into the dark...because I really wanted to.

I could blame it on horniness...My husband has been away on business since August 3rd with the exception of a Saturday once a month...

Or, I could just admit that I'm a hypocrite and be done with it...

Wouldn't it be so liberating to toss all of the rules to the wind and just enjoy the moments that come my way? It would...it really, really would...

Looking into the fire, listening to the drums...I realized that my heart was pounding out of my chest because the too young girl had spoken a primal language to the beast that lives inside of me...the one who only sees life in fantasy and dream...the one who I packed away when I left my inner boi behind so long ago and didn't allow him to become a man...because I had to be someone else...I had to be someone's mother...and my Femme-self came into being.

My beast...

My little boi grown up...

I don't have a rule for this one. I'm in unknown territory. I know what my primal instinct wanted to do...I wanted to wrap her hair in my fist. I wanted to hold her down and kiss her mindless. I wanted to thrust my cock inside of her, dominate her, make her beg and scream...

That is behavior reserved for only in my mind...

But now, I feel like there is a battle going on inside of me and this round went to the little bitch on my right shoulder. I obeyed the rules...I was good...But watching the fire flicker and spark, I decided something else. I'm tired of living by rules of right and wrong that don't really make any sense to me anymore (did they ever?) and I want to let my beast out to play...and honestly, there isn't anything femme about that part of me at all.

Maybe this is "just a phase"...

I remember my mom saying that when I was young...at the time I'd cut off my hair and taken to carrying my wallet in my hip pocket...

A phase would be a comfort...I know who I am in my Femme skin...and this...unknown territory is so far out of my comfort zone that I really don't know the answer to, "What next?"

Technorati Tags: Boi, femme, kissing