As I work out the learning curve on a new editing program for FemmeCast: The Queer Fat Femme Podcast Guide to Life, I have started to produce some video podcasts. The first one is me (Bevin Branlandingham) and Taueret (Ferocity Correspondent) doing some activist stretches. Sometimes the holidays give you The Rage and you just gotta stretch it out.

(For some reason it's not letting me embed the video--so here is the link to youtube!)

I have more to come, one on a fun game called Intervention (not like the tv show), another from FemmeCamp in Austin, TX and another one from the Fat Studies Reader release event in Brooklyn.

Stay tuned for more at The Queer Fat Femme Blog Guide to Life.

Technorati Tags: art, Bevin Branlandingham, books, fat, femme, femmecast, Holiday, queer, video post

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

Knitting is not just for femmes and girls! Anyone can be a knitter, all you have to be is willing to try, humble enough to be taught, and not worried about making mistakes. Get your needles ready, and let's go change the world, one scarf at a time!

Step One: Meet a Knitter: This may be the hardest step, but it is the a crucial one, because that person will be your tour guide into the awesome world of knitting. As I mentioned previously, knitting is a social art that almost requires the presence of other people. It's like drinking alcohol - you should never do it alone! I've tried and tried to learn to crochet by reading a book, or listening to someone explain the process, and that didn't work at all. Unless you are fabulously amazing (and you very well may be), you will need the help of a real live person.

Step Two: Watch Your Knitter: I found that being able to see a real live person knitting helped me figure it out once the needles were in my hands. Watch your knitter as they show you how to make a knit stitch in slow motion. Ask them to pause, rewind, or fast-forward as you start to see where the fingers, needles, and yarn are going. You might need to repeat Step Two after you get started on Step Three, and don't feel bad about it, either! You're learning!

Step Three: Try it Yourself: Next, it is important to try it out for yourself. You're not going to get it right the first time, and you might even need your knitter to speak the instructions to you as you are moving the instruments (this was a big help to me). If you find it awkward at first, be aware that there is more than one way to knit, so you can switch to a different method later, after you get used to your knitter's method.

Step Four: Find a Knitting Circle: You should have no trouble finding one, and even if it is full of old ladies, give it a fair try of one or two meetings. Knitting (or crocheting) with other people is actually the best part of being able to participate in this craft! Your knitter from Step One should know. If they were willing and excited to teach you, that person is called a knitting evangelist! Even if there is no knitting circle to begin with, that person will teach a bunch of people knit, and before you know it, you'll be sipping, stitching, and bitching together! Also, I'd say teaching people to knit is feminist activism.

Step Five: Get Good Needles and Yarn: In search of good needles, look no further than your local yarn shop. You can google "knitting supplies in [your town]" and even if you live somewhere rural, I would imagine there will always be someone who is passionate enough about fiber arts to have a store not too far away. I put this part at the end of your tutorial because if you find that you don't like it as much as you thought, you haven't yet wasted any money on it. If you truly cannot find a good needle store, you can go to http://www.knitting-warehouse.com/ and get yarns, needles, and pretty much anything you need! I have definitely enjoyed having Addi Turbo's, if you can afford them, you'll be doing yourself a favor. As much as you may be tempted to march yourself over to Wal-Mart, please be very selective about the type of yarn/needles that you buy! Red Heart is nobody's favorite yarn, and Boye needles/hooks are very awkward to work with. I have found that the evil place (Wal-Mart) carries Simply Soft Eco by Caron yarns is actually very soft, and includes 20% post consumer recycled material so you're making something with your hands, and hopefully doing something good for the environment at the same time!

Are you ready to start a revolution with yarn and sticks? I am!

Technorati Tags: art, Craft, feminist activism

The incredibly sexy and absolutely awesome NoFauxxx.Com is having a Holiday Photo Contest! You can win some delicious queer porn, and who doesn't want that? Anything from NoFauxxx is hot, sexy, and delicious. I have a review coming soon of them as well!

Win a Free Year-Long Membership to NoFauxxx.Com for you and a friend!

Holiday Photo Contest Info from Trouble:

We want to give you, and one of your friends, one of the best holiday gifts you can get - free queer porn! All you have to do is send us a photograph that shows your definition of "QUEER." We will judge the photo on artistic quality and content readability - and we will post all of the entries in a special gallery on NoFauxxx.Com!
Here are the rules.

1. YOU MUST BE 18 OR OLDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS CONTEST. Please include a photo of you holding up your ID (with date of birth clearly readable) along with your photo submission.

2. Photo can be of anything, but it has to include YOU and a symbol of your definition of "queer." You do *not* have to be naked, however you are also free to be as naked as you like, and doing anything you like in the photo just as long as it is legal!

3. Please use your own ideas, we're looking for something unique and one of a kind! We are looking for photos that have emotional content - we want to look at the photo and say, "Oh! This is what 'queer' means to this person!"

4. Please fill out the additional questions on the form, such as how you took the photo, what gave you the idea, and what your definition of "queer" is.

Models, members, and fans are all eligible to win. Photos must be self-shot or self-directed, and taken specifically for this contest. Photos from a professional photo set probably wont win this one!

If you are ready to enter this contest, please fill out the submission form now!

Submission Form
Contest Home Page

Good Luck!

xo Trouble

Technorati Tags: art, contests, Holiday, home, porn, queer

http://www.feminapotens.org

**An Open Letter From Madison Young**

Hello lovely people,

As you may or may not know, I not only perform in some of your favorite adult films and bondage sites but I’m also an artist and activist who runs a progressive art gallery in San Francisco, Femina Potens Art Gallery (www.feminapotens.org)

Femina Potens has provided hundreds or art exhibits, spoken word events, multi-media programs, film screenings and educational work shops over the past 8 years that reflect the experiences of women, transgendered, kink, and sex worker communities.  We need all of your support in order to continue to provide such resources to the community and create visibility for cutting edge artists.

With our new sustainer program you can donate as little as $10 a month, a tax deductible donation, and at the same time become part of a movement of artists pushing boundaries around identity, sex, feminism, public health, and queering how together as a community we engage with art.

Help support visibility and connection of the queer community through the arts.  Nurture your community by sustaining the only non-profit art gallery in the Castro and the country’s only queer public arts program.

Femina Potens is an all ages community funded gallery and is a reflection of all of us.  We encourage you to become a member.  Connecting Communities by Queering Concepts of Art and Sex.

Go to http://www.feminapotens.org to become a sustainer today.  Sustainers also receive such benefits as free tickets to Femina Potens events, VIP art events, and discounts on art purchases.

Thank you so much for your support.

xo,
Madison Young

Technorati Tags: art, bisexual, CommUNITY, Femina Potens Art Gallery, lesbian, madison young, queer, transgender

From Video "Eleven - Eddie/Aya in the Woods 3" on Good Dyke Porn

Each time I start writing this review of Good Dyke Porn I have to stop and start over, because I keep on not being able to convey just how much I've enjoyed this site, and how wonderful I believe this site and these videos are. Not only does every video look like real dykes having real dyke sex (interpret that as you wish) and actually genuinely enjoying themselves, they are doing it in a way that is incredibly enjoyable to watch as well.

The only negative I can say about the site at all is that I found myself getting so turned on by it that I got turned around on it, unsure of how to get back to a page I was on before without the back button or scrolling through multiple pages. Part of that was me forgetting how I got to a page after watching a video, cumming, and being generally brain-addled from that.

Even with the slightly confusing navigation videos aren't at all difficult to find, just getting back to a specific video or page was difficult for me, and I enjoy the general layout and the way each video is laid out, with the ability to watch or save each clip from each scenario. Another nice thing about the way it's set up is that you can choose get a general membership to the site or just buy individual clips that pique your interest, which is extremely handy because not everyone is into all the same things, so you can just pick and choose what you want to watch and what you don't. Of course, the more clips you buy the more you would save by just buying a membership.

I've watched a number of different clips and different scenarios, from a familiar pizza boy scenario to a femme circle jerk to a femmed up male-bodied dyke and his lover engaging in play, and many more! Each one was strikingly different but they all were exactly what the title indicates: good (or great) dyke porn. I loved the feeling that I got from watching these, not just the turned on feeling but like I was peeking in on what these dykes normally did with each other, not that I was watching some elaborately staged visual adult entertainment that was trying to be anything other than real dykes getting it on.

I especially loved that everyone looked like they were real people, with all different breast sizes, body types, and skin tones. Like I said, every scenario is different, with a variety of tones, toys, and activities. Some have strap-ons and other toys introduced into the mix, some are just dyke-on-dyke fingers and mouth on cunt action, some have restraints and BDSM or D/s overtones, some have all three. They are all in various locations both outdoors (hot!) and indoors and each one of them is extremely fun to watch.

Some of the videos even have extra 'behind the scenes' clips as a seperate clip after the hot action, where you get to talk with those involved in the scene and learn a little more about them. I loved this, almost more than the actual videos (though not quite--I did say almost!) because it just emphasizes that these are real people that you're watching having sex and having fun. Hearing the participants explain what made them want to do porn and how they were feeling post-scene was a wonderful experience that I really appreciated being able to see.

I also love that there is a male-bodied individual in one of the scenarios. I noticed a post on the forum about this as well (another great feature to have on a sex-positive very women-friendly porn site, the ability to converse with other members about the porn and just about anything). The forum post had the title "Do men belong in dyke porn?" It wasn't someone complaining, just wanting to know what the others there thought. There were quite a few responses, including this one from Bren Ryder the creator of GDP:

"Women like different things and some may argue that there shouldn't be a dildo or there shouldn't be cake or there shouldn't be young beautiful femme women with perfect bodies or there shouldn't be a scene where a bio-guy is dressed up like a woman and then gets fucked in the ass.
I say there absolutely should be all of those things and MORE. Anything that serves our queer fantasies. "

The majority of others on the forum agreed with her and I couldn't agree with her more. I was extremely surprised and excited to see a femmed-up male-bodied person in dyke porn! If you've been reading me for a while you know that I've been talking a lot recently about the queer ways in which males and females can interact sexually, so I love having a video on a dyke site to point to exactly that!

I think Good Dyke Porn is an amazing site full of wonderful videos enjoyable to everyone even remotely queer (and in my world that's just about everyone). If you haven't, I highly recommend you go check out the site, look at the samples, sign up for the forums, and maybe even buy some clips. You know you want to.

-Scarlet Lotus Sexgeek

Technorati Tags: art, body, dyke, porn, queer, review, sex, women

Forgive the Martha Stewart reference; I couldn’t resist.

I’m a self-taught sewer. This means that I’ve made a lot of really bad stuff. But, on the other hand, I’m a classically trained painter, and I’ve made a lot of truly tragic paintings too, so I’m not sure that means much. However, I will say, that the circumstances that make for good art always come our failures.

About a year ago, I started work on an embroidered self portrait. I don’t really think when I’m creating, but somehow that is when I manage to work out all my inner nonsense. At that point last year I was struggling a bit with some femme identity issues, and so creating a piece about myself was really a balm for me. While I was working on this particular piece it occurred to me that I had a full project already planned out.

I want to learn more about female identity: the loss of it, the removal of it, the ignoring of it, the embracing of it, the presentation of it, the acceptance of it, the different ways it can be interpreted, and the emotions associated with it, etc. etc. etc. What I am asking for is your help. I need your participation.

The purpose of the series is to present various perspectives on female identity through the medium of what is commonly thought of as a traditional female medium: hand embroidery. These perspectives will be presented by a nude embroidered portrait with an accompanying anonymous paragraph authored by the participant. Each portrait will be placed in a shadowbox environment with the anonymous paragraph.

I am requesting that anyone who feels a reaction to the phrase “female identity” participate. Originally, I had planned to list all the various labels we as a community use for ourselves and mention that these are welcome to participate. But, then I realized that so many of us reject labels, or don’t fit into labels, and truly this is about inclusion.

Please submit a paragraph (or more, but please understand that it may have to be edited) about how you respond to female identity. I know this is a wide area, so feel free to put what is most poignant to you. Next, I ask that you send me a picture of yourself. This does not have to be a nude portrait; but I do ask that I be able to roughly gauge your body (are you tall, short, thick, thin, curvy?). Since the portrait is to be nude, I would humbly request that you let me know in which manner you would like your most private areas represented (cisgendered, lesbian, trans-femme pre-op and the like are perfectly fine –I’m pretty quick on the uptake). It is also perfectly okay to indicate that you prefer this remain private. In this case, the portrait will depict an undergarment.

Please send your information to: hinterland.femme@gmail.com

Your identity will remain completely private; no one will know your identity save myself. All participants will be personally contacted by me as soon as their portrait is finished (so you will be able to preview a bit of the final product). When a showing of the series is to be presented all participants will be invited.

I really do hope that if you have any response to this that you do participate. The more viewpoints the series has, the more powerful it will be. I think that we have so many people today that go under-voiced, or go unrecognized. . . And, let me just say this: “I want to hear you.”

Please note that in submitting to this series it is with the understanding that you will not retain any legal rights to the paragraph you send, or to the doll created from the information you send.

And, just to be fair. . .here I am:

Technorati Tags: art, female identity, hinterland, sewing