Touch Your Lips, Hold Our Gaze & Other Femme Tactics

In my last post, I wrote about my own frustration in finding our beloved femmes when geography isn’t the roadmap. This post generated more likes, comments, retweets and shares than most. Apparently, our femmes are even more frustrated than I am.

Yikes! Butches, they are throwing themselves at you (not me, I would notice), and still being ignored or dismissed by you (not me, I never ignore a femme). And, they are pissed. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for a lovely femme to head out for the evening all gorgeous and femme-like and to have no butch even talk to her because they’ve dismissed her as straight. Argh.

I asked these Femmes what were their best moves for being noticed by us. Below are the most popular strategies they shared. Butches: take note! Femmes: perhaps you can incorporate a new move from your femme sisters.

1. Longer Than Polite Eye Contact

Gaze at your Target Butch (“TB”). Bat your lovely mascara’d eyelashes at her. Be sure you make eye contact and hold her gaze for a moment longer than normal.

Note to make sure you smile; you don’t want to appear to be staring in disgust or judgement. You don’t want to get lumped into that probably large basket of folks who gawk or stare at the TB (including me, as I definitely get this one).

2. Stare, Smile, Stare

This one particularly caught my attention. The play is to make eye contact with the TB, smile, look down and then look back up at her. Meow. If she’s watching, it sounds pretty powerful – it will work on me for sure. How about you?

3. Arm Touching, Leg Grazing, Hair Pulling

Touch the TB’s arm with little excuse, like laughing at her joke or something she’s said. Depending on the forum, (like sitting at a bar) you might touch her thigh – sending a laser signal to her. Basically, the message is if a femme can find a reason to touch the TB, she should do so. TB: Pay Attention! If she touches you, there’s probably something more there.

One femme even admitted pulling her TB’s hair. She’s a stylist so there was a good excuse, but still… Take me home!

4. Appropriate Stalking

Shop, get coffee, check out books, drop off your bike for repairs when TB is working. Also, work out when she does, join a group she likes. Sure it’s stalking, but in an entirely appropriate way. The hope is that the sheer number of sightings and contacts will wake the TB, and us in general, up.

5. Rainbows & Unicorns

Wear a visible one somewhere: bracelet, ring, necklace, cell phone case (make a call), sticker on your car. Unless you drive a Subaru, then no sticker needed.

Several lamented the need to tattoo “FEMME” on their foreheads. Sigh. Would be such a shame to mar those lovely faces. Now, you could tattoo that in a few other places and I think that would be just fine…

Where was I? Oh yes, number 6.

6. Hello! Outright Flirting

Plenty of Femmes said this was necessary and that it works. Apparently, we are dumb as posts at times, and the sure fire way is to say hello and give your number or ask her for coffee.

The answer is yes, by the way, I’d love to have coffee.

7. Drop the L Word

Say something lesbian or gay. Drop that subtle hint. Did you see that Portia has new hair? How about the President’s speech – go gays! Or I was just reading this cool butch blog the other day…

Super obvious way to signal you are lesbian, and thus a femme. That is, unless TB mistakes you for a supportive straight. Perhaps it’s best to pair this one with any other strategy to minimize the possibility of confusion on TB’s part. Remember, we have slightly more testosterone (sounds right even if it’s not) and that makes us dumber. Plus, you are pretty so we can’t concentrate.

8. The Hair Tuck

Find an opportune moment, preferably whenTB is looking, and tuck your lovely hair behind your lovely ear. This will draw TB’s attention to your ear and neck, encourage noticing of the hair/face/eyes/neck. All good things.

If possible, do it with your hand that sports a rainbow bracelet or ring. If not, do it while holding the TB’s gaze. Now, we’re off to the races.

9. Secret Handshake

We need a signal. Something secret that we all can recognize. If this blog were popular enough, I might be doing some real good here by suggesting this. But, it’s not. Who cares? Let’s agree on a signal for us cool kids.

Touching the side of your nose? Too Santa.

Winking? Too BBC and Benny Hill.

Hair flipping (which is different from the hair tuck)? Too common, hot though. Please feel free to do this liberally.

Sticking your tongue out? Too forward and could be embarrassing.

The Macarena? Too 90’s

How about brushing your lips with your two forefingers briefly (like Quentin is doing below)? That’s subtle enough not to stand out to any Muggles who happen to see, but just sexy enough to catch our attention. Certainly, it would catch my attention. It’s worth a shot! Even if TB doesn’t know the signal, touching your lips is usually hot, so where’s the downside?

And lastly, I note one butch’s comment… Hit on whoever you are attracted to. If she’s not a femme, fine. Her point is men don’t care if their target woman is gay, they make a move. Women flirt without knowing if a guy is gay or straight. Why the extra burden on ourselves? The world is our oyster, Butches.

See her, flirt with her. Done. She’ll either be open to it or not. If not, she’s likely to be flattered. As long as you’re not flirting with Michelle Bachmann or anyone at a Republican or conservative church gathering, there’s probably pretty low risk.

For another look into how us Butches see this dilemma, check out this blog over at CardCarryingLesbian.

It’s butch to let us Butches know you’re interested, lovely Femmes. Be Butch.