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 [...]

Beauty, Femininity and Feminism

Is your lipstick a tool of the patriarchy?  Is the pursuit of beauty anti-feminist?   Before you answer these questions, consider this: It is the masculine values that prevail. Speaking crudely, football and sports are “important”; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes “trivial.”  This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals [...]

Making Up

If I’m running super late–as I all too often do (sorry, honey!)–I can work at breakneck speed and get my makeup on in five minutes, but that means putting on my lipstick and/or mascara in the rearview mirror while I’m at a redlight. Personally, I think the much-trumpeted “5-minute face” is a beauty industry myth. [...]

What Makes (Me) a Femme

Long, long ago in a gender galaxy far, far away… …I was butch! I know what you’re thinking: how could your favorite ravishing femme queer theorist–who is typing these words with perfectly manicured red nails–have ever been butch? But it’s really true, my lovelies, I swear. I had Hilary Swank’s haircut in Boys Don’t Cry, [...]

Introducing Sublimefemme Unbound

A belated introduction to Sublimefemme Unbound, dear readers… If you’re not interested in having your world rocked by a high femme queer theorist, who critiques politics and culture wearing a sheer black peignor and pink marabou stilettos, then this probably isn’t your kind of site.  If you do not worship at the feet of disarmingly smart and exuberantly sensual femmes, [...]