Silver Foxes

Do silver foxes really exist among femmes or is being considered gray and foxy only possible if you’re Anderson Cooper?  My beloved grandmother died at the age of 96 (actually, we’re not exactly sure how old she was) and she was still coloring her hair brown right up until the end.   I’ve been coloring my hair for years, [...]

Sublimefemme Tells All, No. 16

In an emergency situtation, always ground and center yourself by fixing your lipstick first. 

To You, Wonderful Femmes

Dear grrlchef, sarcozona, Lady Brett Ashley, Skinny Bone Jones, the hostess, LaurynX and my other fantastic readers,   To the wonderful femmes named, you have no idea how much I appreciate your encouraging comments on my last post, “Social Justice and Cute Shoes.”  It’s so fantastic for me to be able to convey the diversity and complexity of my interests and commitments–to [...]

This Quiz Sucks

The lovely Skinny Bone Jones has posted about how she and her loverbird M recently took one of those “ridiculous” (I’m quoting her) butch/femme quizzes.  You can read about their reaction to the quiz and find out about the marriages it almost wrecked here ;-) The half-baked butch/femme quiz…  We know they’re awful and that we’ll  glean [...]

Social Justice and Cute Shoes

News flash:  Martin Luther King’s legacy is far more complex than the mainstream media acknowledges!   By articulating the connections between racism, imperialism and economic inequality, King showed how struggles for social justice are interrelated.  Today, what I find inspiring and important about MLK’s message (the real one, not the sound bite) is its radicalism.  I use “radical” in [...]

Stay Young and Beautiful

I have a birthday at the end of the month, so even though I’m perfectly satisfied with my current age I will have to relinquish it.  I’m not one to pout, darlings, but the truth is that I’m really only comfortable with aging when someone else is doing it.   Here’s where this post was supposed to turn away from the [...]

Beyond Femme Realness

Since we’ve been talking about “failed” gender performances and the like lately, a “Masculinity Fail” post from Fail Blog caught my eye.  The video itself, which is about a weatherman who screams and freaks out at the sight of a cockroach in the middle of his broadcast, is pretty hilarious and made me wish I had a sissy weatherman on my local news.  (I [...]

When Femme Fails (and Other Questions)

Last year I discussed ”high femme” and shared with you my working definition of the term.   The two posts I wrote on this subject, which you can find here and here, prompted great dialogue–for which I’m so grateful!  Just to refresh your memory, my goal in those posts was to conceptualize high femmes not so much as “more feminine” than other kinds of [...]

Sublimefemme Tells All, No. 15

Femme is what femininity without boundaries looks like.      

Janis: Undoing Femme

What would it look like if we unhinged femininity from the ideal of flawlessness?  What part can femme play in this project?  All too often, femme is mistakenly equated with prissy, perfect, and idealized forms of womanhood.  But femme doesn’t mean being consigned to some vapid and airbrushed model of femininity!  Femmes are raw, imperfect, wild, strong, and–yes–ballsy, like my femme icon Janis Joplin.    I [...]