femme flagging

My first attempt at femme flagging

femmesandfamily:

I made up my own code, and I’m terrible at painting nails - BUT WHATEVER.

First, the left hand.

Thumb: Pink/Yellow for Misandry

Ring and pointer: Blue/Pink for Always Consent Always

Middle: Red/Pink for Power Bottom

Pinkie: Yellow for Fat

Now the right!

Thumb: Clear forQueer

Ring and pointer: Blue/Pink for Always Consent Always

Middle: Red/Blue forFisting

Pinkie: Blue forSurvivor

Here is the full list of my codes (keep in mind I created it because I only have 4 colors of polish)

Queers re-fashion ‘flagging’ codes by Jo Latham (The Scavenger, undated)

“The point of flagging is to invite questions, to initiate conversations about the specifics of sex and of desire and to acknowledge the complexities involved in sexual interaction. Flagging does not tell you everything (indeed even a good double or triple flag can only tell you so much), and clubs are dark: maybe what you thought was red was actually dark pink. Flagging, then, demands an explicit and specific understanding (and practice) of consent. Without it, flagging makes no sense. A flag is an indication, a reference to interest in certain activities and a way of non-verbal initiation. In this way, flagging provides a radical resistance to the kind of “hands on” harassment and abuse many of us endure….

…The queerness of contemporary flagging culture is less about ‘homosexuality’ and more about drawing attention to the ambiguities of desire, of gender and of bodies. Flagging in this way takes into account the realities of transexuality, transvestism, bisexuality, heterosexuality, and indeed female bodies, in ways that the traditional system failed to do so. Thus, flagging resists conventional (and sexist) assumptions about who wants what and how, as well as emphasising that talking about the specifics of sex is a necessary part of practising safer sex (that is, sexually interacting with anyone).”

http://www.thescavenger.net/glb/queers-refashion-flagging-codes-27856-368.html

calumniae:

At its heart, femme flagging takes a technique used to decorate the body for public consumption and subverts it. So, yes, we need a way to flag “consent always” and that stands for “ask my consent always and I will always ask yours”. Because flagging itself is sometimes assumed to be consent just like the length of my skirt and the fact that I accidentally caught someone’s glance across a crowded dance floor are assumed to be consent. Because the femme body is simultaneously eroticized and made invisible in queer communities. It is a radical, brave act to name my desires on my hands and simultaneously signal that these desires are not open invitations.

Borrowing/adapting from Opinicus Rampant’s gender/body neutral hanky code: http://flaggingopinicusrampant.wordpress.com/about/

“Flagging is not consent.” Flagging means being comfortable with “being propositioned, being rejected, and having the capacity to reject.”

YES!