Lazy Femme

[sofiaviolet]

As mentioned in this earlier post of mine:

I want to write about "lazy femme," which is what I call my gender presentation. In short: I like things like skirts and makeup, but I don't generally bother with these more effortful bits of gendered plumage.

I like femininity. I like pink and glitter and high heels and lace and whatever. That kind of stuff is fun to play with; I'm also attracted to femininity in other people.

I am not, however, very good at doing femininity. I lack makeup skills. My hair is long? And dyed? As for body hair, I remain uncommitted to the "fuck shaving!" stance, and shaving is the least of the evils and even that results in nasty razor burn half the time. Dresses are at least easier than skirts: less matching and coordinating required. I suck at walking in heels unless I'm really thinking about it. I could go on...

So, I'm not good at femininity past a certain level. And presenting as femme isn't that important to me, so I spend my efforts elsewhere. But I will still do that presentation, when I feel like it.

Sometimes the amount of effort I can expend on my presentation is curtailed by depression. I pushed myself to dress a lot more femme this summer; Doing Things can be good for managing my depression, and Doing Femme encouraged me to leave the house and Do Other Things (and Doing Other Things helped with the push to Do Femme). Ultimately, I would like to shift from this semi-binary method of managing my presentation, to a more general Thinking About Style every day.

My reaction to a New Het Relationship seems to be a desire to Be A Giant Girl. So when I visited C., I planned on doing femme full-time for a week. I packed one pair of jeans (the +8 Confidence pair, of course) - the rest was skirts and dresses. And absolutely zero practical shoes. I packed makeup! And then I arrived and it didn't matter. I never unpacked the makeup. I wore the dresses because that's what I had, but the need to be All Femme All The Time evaporated. It's not like we had some kind of serious discussion about my gender presentation, but he just seemed to have been expecting me-as-I-usually-am, and was a bit confused, though not displeased, about getting me-being-very-femme. My "how do I present today?" decisions were firmly back in my own hands. It was awesome.

Not that I'm done with my happy fun femme-y times! I am going to experiment with tights this year, to extend my skirt-wearing season into colder months. I am reading some femme blogs! I have not stopped buying skirts, nor have I disposed of my shoe collection; they continue to be very much loved even if they don't get as much wear as they perhaps should. I will continue to tweak my presentation as needed for my own happiness and comfort.

To sum up: I guess I'm kinda sorta femme? Why am I not more femme? Because it's haaaaaaard. Therefore: lazy femme. The end.*

* This is a really sketchy and disjointed post; there may be more later. For now, it is done, but please feel welcome to ask for any clarifications and expansions in the comments.

Comments

Re: Unsolicited

[pinesandmaples]

I always feel like I should apologize for jumping onto my "heels do not make the woman" soapbox because it's such a big issue for me. Reducing my wife to Not A Woman (which happens all the freaking time and is not something I'm accusing you of) because she can only wear flats isn't fair for about a billion reasons, etc.

but all my pants are too long (hence the collection of heels, quasi-wedges, and platforms). The real solution to this is to hem my goddamn pants.

I'm sure it's a stupid question, but have you discovered ankle length? Aliyah is 5'3" with average legs, and she never thought to try on ankle length pants...but they are right for her! (My super short friend Sid is also a recent convert to the ankle length trouser.) Were I to wear trousers, I would pursue the ankle length. (But I don't wear trousers very often so it's a non-issue for me.)

but I'd love to see the photos anyway.

I never turn down a request to share pictures of my lovely wife!




Short hair suits her face and habits a lot better, but I do admit the era of long sex hair was great.

(My big Hair Project right now is getting purple hair to work in some capacity. Whee things I don't actually know how to do!)

Are we talking "purple like the background of your DW" or "some variation on burgundy"? Because to get your dark hair the color of your DW background, you'll need to bleach it for somewhere between an 30 minutes and two hours to get it close to a white blonde using a professional grade bleach (like Wella Wellite Powder Lightener or Clairol Basic White) mixed with a 20 volume developer, then dye over. (A bleach tip, if I may: check the bleach every 15-20 minutes by looking in the mirror. You'll actually see it lightening your hair, and you can see when your hair gets close to the color you want. It's really neat.) For the purple, you might find it with Manic Panic or Ben Nye...but I have no idea, actually. The brand I use isn't widely available, but it's got really good purple. (It's Creative Image Adore, if you stumble upon it.)

To maintain your color, you'll want to give up swimming and shampoo. A conditioner-only wash is the only good way to maintain bright, unnatural colors for more than a week.

If you are going for some variation on burgundy, the professional lines of Feria and Clairol's Miss Clairol have some good red-burgundy things that turn out something like this on dark hair, no bleaching necessary.

Either way, you need to hit up something like Sally Beauty Supply (or a local shop that has the same stock) to manage these adventures.

(I know way too freaking much about managing freakish hair colors. Obviously.)

Re: Unsolicited

[sofiaviolet]

I have tried the shorter styles from Express, which actually work for me! But I think they've been lengthening their pants over the years; I didn't have nearly so much trouble with their regular length pants when I was in high school. H&M doesn't seem to do multiple lengths, and they make clothes for really tall people. Perfect for Ellie but not so perfect for me. And as for jeans, I get those secondhand.

Yay advice! I do mean actual purple - I sort of did the burgundy thing in high school and early college. I suspect this will require getting Ellie to help out, especially since I think I just want the one chuck of hair that always falls in my eyes. :)

Ooooh, I wish my hair would do that! It's dead straight, though.

Re: Unsolicited

[pinesandmaples]

Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic all make ankle, regular, and tall trousers. There ends my sphere of reference. If you are shopping second-hand and see a Gap or Old Navy pair with an A after the number on the tag, that means you found an ankle-length pair of jeans or khakis. I'm not sure what the designator for tall is, though.

especially since I think I just want the one chuck of hair that always falls in my eyes. :)

Clip or pin the hair around it back. When you have the bleach on that section, clip a plastic sandwich baggie or little pouch of sandwich wrap loosely around it and pin it to keep the bleach in and the world out. (I recommend the sandwich baggie, myself. That's how we do Aliyah's streak.) Do the same thing when you have the purple on your hair. It protects your face.

Re: Unsolicited

[sofiaviolet]

:D Thank you!