First of all, I understand your blog to be a telling of your experience. Not how you think others should think, feel or act, but what your experience is. I believe you’ve been clear in this. You’re staying in your lane and not crossing over into anyone else’s.

Secondly, what happened to accepting that we can all have different perspectives in our community? I’ve kind of assumed (and you know what that means) that we all know and understand that, while we might all feel differently about our identities, we all have that right. The fact that Amazon feels entitled to downplay your experience blows me away, quite frankly. That’s like me telling other butches that the way they identify or present is wrong, because it’s not how I do it.

The self-policing in the queer community concerns me, as we wouldn’t tolerate that from anyone in the hetero community. But it’s almost like some folks feel that they have the right as a fellow queer to say what’s right or wrong for another.

I’ll get off my soapbox now while there’s still time. You’re doing good work, Alpha. Don’t change a thing.

I love the distinction you made about defendING your position without being defensIVE. I think you’ve done it wonderfully well here and I do believe that having an open mind approaching others with the best of intentions will serve you well going forward with your life.

Seriously, rock on with yourself and please keep sharing.

Also, you know, zombies.

I don’t understand why someone would think that your opinion of yourself is domineering. I’ve been following your blog for a while now, and have never once considered defining-others to be part of your identity. And I totally hear you on the coming out as empowering part. There is nothing quite as empowering as understanding your own history (so that’s why I act this way!) and creating your own identity in a positive feedback loop with that history.

The only problem I could see happening is becoming entrenched in one idea of self. The gray areas can be pretty nice; I am dykey as hell, dress like a boy 100% of the time, would identify as genderqueer, but still LOVE. IT. when my ladyfriend calls me “Katie-girl.” Who knows why this is. But it’s true.

This constraint, however, is not something I see you falling under. Maybe there is a fear internalized in the other blogger that she sometimes wants to be passive….but who the hell knows, that may just be pure conjecture.

I also take issue with Amazon stating that your expression of Femme is sickening to her. Anyone in this community should understand and embrace a diversity of gender expressions. I consider myself Femme, and yet I know that by many other’s standards I am not femme in my daily life (I love my heels but 7/10 times you will probably find me in purple chucks).

I appreciate your candidness in these past few months with your femininity and wants and needs. My own writing/blog was inspired by your blog and openness with readers. If it were not for the support of the wonderful Femme community online I would very much feel lost and out of place in this world. Thank you.

That said, her post did come across to me as a wee bit of an attack (the more when I re-read it than it did at first read). She says “I have this visceral, miserable reaction” to what she understands my femme fantasy to be (which I don’t think is accurate, but more on that in a minute). That, to me, is a *judgment*, and it stings. No one should have a miserable reaction to an identity that someone else feels empowered by. You don’t have to understand it, but please don’t judge.

She also says, “I feel like someone is telling me that I don’t have the right to self-define.”

Um, no. As Undercover Punk said in her comment, I’m definitely NOT saying that, not at all, and if she’d read actually read m posts, which I sort of doubt she did in their entirety, she would see that I make perfectly clear that I’m talking about my OWN interpretation of femme, what it means for ME, and I even go so far as to explicitly say that I KNOW it’s not the same for everyone and that I hope no one feels like I’m stepping on their identity.

And then to go back to her assumptions about my version of Femme — she seems to have this notion that I basically just do whatever mi’lady wants me to do, which is so far from the truth it’s laughable to consider that. If anything, our relationship is more the other way around — I’m so much more detail-oriented than she is that I tend to be the one running both of our lives! (And I need to work on NOT doing that so much!) And in most of my life, I am ambitious and assertive and very on top of things, very independent, so that it feels like a release to be able to feel like I’ve got someone taking care of me in my home life, my romantic life.

And like Harrison TB gets at, it can be really hard to actually define who is the care-taker, because the truth is we both take care of each other, just in different ways. I’m the domestic caretaker, because that makes me feel powerful and useful and strong and productive and sexy. She is more of an emotional/physical caretaker, because she’s stronger than me, more protective, more quieting, calmer, affirming. So in no way is our relationship unequal, and in no way should I have to justify any of this anyway so I’m going to stop.

Also, JB, I think yes she probably does consider the women who play with her to be femme submissive, but I think she’s presuming that I’m NOT like them, because I would really hope that she wouldn’t have a visceral miserable reaction towards them. That would be a really unhealthy dynamic to bring to a sexual relationship as a top, and would be highly disrespectful to the sub. So I’m really, really hoping that she somehow distinguishes me from them (though I’m not entirely clear on what she uses as her distinguishing factor).

One of the biggest things I have to remember in my own feminist work is that if we’re going to tell women to choose for themselves, that includes respecting their decision when they choose to be a wife, mother, and nurturer. ;) It’s one place where I think feminism is doing more damage than good, telling women that they aren’t “allowed” to do that anymore — which means all the women who feel like you do, who want to be able to be home and nurturing, are being told they’re wrong, or there’s something wrong with them. :(

On an aside note, I’m guessing the domme femme considers the women who play with her to be femme/feminine, and yet they’re submissive. Just a point. ;)

I really think that ALL of our process into becoming or ID-ing as Femme is a sacred and special one and NO ONE should have the want or power to make ANY Femme have to write a post entitled ‘Defending My Version of Femme’