Please note: The following post contains sexually explicit material. Read at your own discretion. This is in response to the call for contributions put out by Sinclair Sexsmith for the Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom & Autonomy (edition 15). You may notice that I totally disregard discussing how my sexual autonomy relates to and interacts with my views on feminism. Frankly, I've never considered myself a feminist. So I'm not the least bit concerned about how the two interact.Confused?
You can read more about my views and personal insights regarding feminism here, here and here.
Ah, the stereotypes of Femme.
Femmes, being "feminine", are bottoms. Femmes are submissive. Femmes are fucked. Femmes don't fuck.
How often do we see this?
In blogs and forums and discussions and literature.
Femme personifies the feminine female spirit and, therefore, the assumption goes, femme is all of those things stereotypically "female".
Personally, I love to be fucked. I love to be filled, possessed, used, taken. I have not yet found the boundary into "too rough" (and, believe me, we've looked).
It's not just a preference, but a physical need.
Not just a biological requirement but a sexual longing.
While it is the thing I am most likely to crave, sexually, it is not the only thing that lights my fire.
Oh, delicious dichotomies, how I also love fucking.
With a strap on, my hand, a dildo.
I love the act of filling, possessing, using, taking. I love the connection, the completion.
And I love it best when she loves it, too.
I don't think it's any secret that I love butch women.
Women who personify the masculine female spirit grind my gears in all the right ways.
(Which is totally not to say that I don't dig feminine women, because I do. It's just not exactly the same.)
As with the femme stereotypes, there are, of course, butch stereotypes.
Butches top. Butches are dominant. Butches fuck, they don't get fucked.
And the biggest, most convoluted stereotype of them all: Stone Butch.
Because "butch" is "masculine", the assumption goes, all of those things stereotypically "male" apply.
As with all stereotypes, however, the truth of the matter is, often, not as easy to decipher as outside appearances make it seem.
A woman who personifies the masculine spirit but still craves being fucked like a woman?
To me, personally, that's just about hotter than the surface of the sun.
Part of my journey in understanding my personal relationship with femme was coming into the realization that the stereotypical femme bottom role did not apply to me.
I had to come to terms with the fact that femmes top, too.
Not only that, but I had to revisit my own personal understanding that I don't, have never, fallen neatly into given categories.
I have always endeavored to forge my own trail, to find the pieces that fit best and felt right for me, personally.
Sometimes, I get waylaid and find myself falling into traps of stereotyping. Following the easy path because it's been laid out for me. Usually I'll bump up against some wall of the box and find myself disoriented and outraged that I can't have that thing on the other side of the wall.
When I'm smart, this is the point where I'll take a step back and realize I've allowed myself to be placed in a box that doesn't apply to me.
Sexual autonomy, for me, is a journey.
I cannot visualize the destination because the image of who I am, sexually, does not exist.
I have to create it.
I know my journey is not complete because there are too many walls left.
Walls by my design, because of my own issues.
Walls by society's design, because of society's issues.
Sexual freedom is the power that I have to decide when, where, how and with whom I express my sexuality.
Sexual autonomy is the ability that I have to decide what my sexuality looks like and how I express it.
They are similar but not the same.
Each is a tool I use to bolster the other.
Neither can function, truly, without the other.
To be blatently honest, I have a long way to go on this journey of sexual autonomy.
There are so many things I have to let go of.
Things that hold me back.
Things that, still, indimidate me from becoming the woman I'd like to be.
I refuse to let the box I've found myself in become a bricked enclosure that I cannot escape.
Because I am worth more than that.
And so is my wife.
3 comments:
I think we are coming into a time when socially and politically it is ok to question long-held assumptions. The brave champions who have gone before have secured that for us - Pat Califia, Susie Bright, and many others. I think we are stuck, often, in the lingering heterosexist images that are so pervasive in our society. All things that are vaguely masculine suddenly become super-male and all things vaguely feminine suddenly become super-female. It is unfair to try to box ourselves in like this, but our world loves absolutes, binary systems, and neat little packages. People who don't fit in those packages are misfits: they make the rest of the world uncomfortable, so we are labeled troublemakers, or accused of harboring some kind of inner sexism/homophobia that prevents us from embracing out true, pure butch or femme natures. Bleah. I'm a butch girl. But that does not mean that all of the nerve endings I was issued at birth don't work for me. Indeed they do, and I am most glad for that. Grrr. boxes and labels and walls. Keep plugging - we're all making progress in our own time. Nice job.
"I've never considered myself a feminist."
I think that, from the links you gave about why not, the Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy in general, is about a feminist philosophy you might be more at home with than the ones you've encountered before, it might be a good idea to go check out some of the earlier carnivals too.
I love the way you lay into stereotypes - stereotypes are in some ways the antithesis of labels (because they string so many labels together they become unwieldy)
this is belated but i wanted to say... this is a great post, and i love how between the two of us, we addressed two different sides of the question of stone-ness or stone-butch-ness. i think it's so important to move that conversation past what butches/femmes *must* or *must not* do and into the very real, beautiful variations that actually exist. and to me, that's exactly what you've done here.
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