MY FEMME MANIFESTO

1. A femme desires. She wants. She lusts. In sex and in life, she knows what she wants and she isn't afraid to ask for it. She knows how to take up (and demand) space and how to use her voice and her body.

2. A femme deserves what she wants. She doesn't feel bad for wanting or taking, despite what society tells her she should feel (especially if she's a woman).

3. A femme can take care of herself just fine. She can get on perfectly well on her own. But if you're lucky (and deserving), she may just let you take care of her.

4. A femme is an expert on her-self – her body, her face and hair, her style, her walk, her looks, her orgasms, her vocations, her entrances and exits. All of it is a studied art and no one does it better than her.

5. A femme is an expert on how others read her – butches, other dykes, women, men – both because of and in spite of how she presents herself. She is aware of the signals and signifiers she puts out into the world and knows to some extent how to control or manage how she is read. She knows how to return a gaze, whether desirous or derisive. She knows how to play into others' fantasies of her for her own pleasures.

6. A femme also knows that in playing with femininity she is playing with a fantasy territory that has many different meanings, in/to both queer and straight cultures. It is littered with landmines and traps: expectations, assumptions, demands and misconceptions. And she knows how to navigate the terrain – with style.

7. A femme knows how to seduce and how to fuck as a femme – whether she is bottoming or topping, dominating, submitting, switching, watching or performing.

8. A femme knows that all this – from walking in heels to fucking – is a set of SKILLS that are learned and perfected over time and with practice.

9. A femme is a queer. She doesn't apologize for her femininity – especially to other queers. She is not an outsider; she is a member of the community. She is not judgmental of other queers and demands to be treated with the same respect. A femme is not a queer in spite of her femininity, and she is not a femme because she "can't help it." Femme is a manifestation and expression of her queerness, how it appears on her body and in her life. Femme is intentional, personal, and erotic.

10. A femme is not invisible. If you don't recognize her, maybe you just don't know how to look.