c o v e r s t o r y
Coming out of the Queer Closet
by Nedhera Landers

f e a t u r e s
A Response to Alix Dobkin's article "Queer & Present Danger"
by De-Anna Alba
Living Deliberately
by Mowani Carter
The Queering of Femininity
by Susan Craigie

c o l u m n s
Health
by Dr. Lipstick
Wealth
by Ms. Moneygrrl
Sex
by SexySuzi
Advice
by Victoria
Fashion
by Fran Fatale
Femme Perspective
by Christine
Butch Perspective
by Daddy Rhon

Publisher's Note
Letter from the Editor
Contribute to Femme

At 16, I'd taken my needs and raging hormones to the lesbian community trying to find someone, anyone, who could help me fulfill my fevered fantasies of having a woman make love to me. I'd finally come to be at peace with my decision to be with women as sexual partners. My fantasies of men had all turned out tepid - as did most of my experiences sleeping with them. I slept with the androgynous dykes of the '70's and frequently walked away from the experience feeling vaguely unsatisfied. After the first flush of excitement over simply being with a woman, I noticed that I just didn't continue to feel that overwhelming lust I'd first experienced.

Two years later at 18, I'd been out to myself all of about six months. I'd already begun a long distance relationship with another woman, D. I was only 18 and didn't have the words for how she related to me sexually. Many years later I was to learn she was stonebutch. By 1978, I'd spent two years of holidays alone, even though I supposedly had a lover. I was climbing the walls with sexual frustration as my lover didn't want to be touched and was frequently sexually unavailable. We saw each other only on weekends, and argued a great deal about sex. I asked for sex, she'd get pissed off and yell that she "didn't plan her sex life in advance!!" My reply was, "WHAT sex life?"

This relationship was hardly conducive to being out, or even feeling satisfied. I was still closeted for all the usual reasons: family, friends, a closeted lover and fear of rejection. D. was living in the midst of a truly bad family situation, and was in a closet that was both deep and wide. She had a former lover who, after their four year college affair, broke up with her and got scared straight by her parents. To please them, she got married and had a kid. But she hung around the periphery of D.'s life. She was D.'s true love, and a specter who haunted our relationship. The spark of electricity I saw between them made me both jealous and fascinated. D. was fixated on this ultra-femme woman. I really didn't understand how to be a femme then - how could I compete? I watched the sparks flash in D.'s eyes when this woman was near. Those sparks had never been present for ME. I wrongly assumed that this woman was the cause of the lack of sexual content and quality in our relationship.

This encounter became my first lesson in butch-femme, the possibility of such electricity between a butch and a femme - the possibilities of such a pairing.

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