You want it darker?
I wasn’t interested in performing heteronormative femininity at all when I was a teen. Even though I was frequently told that I acted more like a dude, I wasn’t particularly masculine either. I was just me.
When I started working in the Times Square peep booths, I decided to shed my careless tomboy aesthetic. I learned the art of High Femme drag from my sister sex workers, who all seemed naturally better at it than I would ever be. Especially the ones who hadn’t been born with the kind of equipment that I had as the factory default.
Even though the marks were mostly straight(ish) men, the girls were mostly not. Our peep joint felt like a queer little pirate ship in those days, navigating the dangerous waters of The Deuce in search of golden riches that never seemed to materialize. There was a lot of turnover. Old crew members got killed in battle or were lost to the briny deep and brash new members came on board. Bianca. Coco. Jasmine. Rae. My memory has always been sketchy and the ravages of menopause have made it worse than ever, but I hang on to the fragments I do remember about those girls. Their firecracker bangs and clip on ponytails. Their chipped glitter nails and menthol cigarettes. Their armored glamour and sharp, gallows humor.
Those girls showed me that femininity could be powerful and I wanted that power for myself.
I remember how they teased me for my deeply uncool choice of drugstore lipgloss, referring to that bland, pinky-peach shade as “Anus Shimmer.” I remember one of the high-earning girls snarkily presenting me with the brightest fuchsia lipstick imaginable, a tube that had already been worn down to a tiny nub so I had to use my pinkie finger to get the last of the precious product onto my lips. But it worked. Tips went up, and I never looked back.
As the 80s became the 90s, I went darker. I dyed my hair blue-black and wore oxblood or deep blackberry lipstick. I painted my toenails with Chanel’s iconic Vamp polish and showed them off in vintage peep-toe pumps. I wore leather and black lace and began to attract a different kind of client. The kind who wanted to be mocked, subjugated or ignored. That’s when I started working full time as a professional Dominatrix.
So when I heard about this new (HA!) make-up/dating/lifestyle trend called “Dark Feminine,” my first thought was aw, look, the TikTok kids think they invented Femdom. Isn’t that precious?
Of course, it’s so much weirder than that.
You need to check out this amazing new podcast called Dire Straights. It’s a feminist deep dive into heterosexual love, sex, politics, and culture, piloted by writers Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei.
If you’re like me and frequently ask “are the straights ok?” this is the podcast for you!
Spoiler: They are not.
This episode on the whole Dark Feminine thing is fucking aces and you should go listen to it right now. I’ll wait.
Still not convinced? Here’s a taste:
Dark Feminine influencers “…claim to teach women how to level the playing field in hetero dating and the world at large by becoming irresistible to men. Everywhere from viral TikTok videos to beauty advice in mainstream women's magazines, the dark feminine meme is spreading some troubling ideas about gender and power, and it tells us a lot about the state of heterosexuality today.
Many months ago, I noticed these viral videos showing up on my feed.
They're of women, mostly white women, with dark hair, red lips and smoky eyes. They have this sort of gothic meets romantic meets glam aesthetic, and they promote something called dark femininity.“
Long dark hair and red lips? Check. Hypnotic gaze, femme fatale energy, and borderline sociopathy? Check. If texting had existed back then, I would NOT text you back.
As a queer person who recently chose to leave all that femme fatale energy behind, this episode gave me so much chewy food for thought.
Like Tracy and Amanda, I was having trouble understanding what the end game is supposed to be for these women. When I was at the height of my Dark Feminine era, my goal was to extract money from men but not to make them desperate to date me. I was too busy playing with people who were not straight cisgendered men.
To be fair, this did have an unfortunate side effect of making some men desperate to date me, but I saw that as more of a you problem than a me problem.
There were so many other elements in this amazing podcast that were intriguing and baffling and infuriating to me. Like the focus on rules and “scripts.” Are the kids today really that terrified of improv? Or how about the depressing fact that the tradwife/dark feminine dichotomy feels like a Gen Z remake of that boring old madonna/whore nonsense.
Here’s another bit that stuck out to me:
“This idea of a kind of sexual attractiveness that is tied to even the edge of violence or power… it's the other side of the disempowered woman under heterosexual relationships. It's the other side of the coin, right? That like, well, if I'm going to move within this economy, I'm at least going to be the one in charge.”
So much of what is wrong with our world can be traced back to this zero sum mentality. “Fuck you, I got mine.” This preference for using the existing systems of oppression to get ahead as an individual rather than trying to dismantle them so that we can all benefit.
For all this talk of sexual power, what these influencers are ultimately selling is more like moonlight than sunlight. It’s a reflective kind of power, all about reflecting the fire of straight men’s desires back at them rather than lighting your own way.
I like to think I’ve been lighting my own way all along, but the spectrum in which I choose to shine has changed. I’m rethinking my style and my goals. I’m embracing new fascinations and ditching the things I want to leave behind. I’m learning every day and I have fewer fucks left to give. I’m unpacking a lot of things about myself and my life that I once took for granted and trying to find my way through the bumpy transition into the third act of my life. And I’m trying to reach out and help the ones who are coming up after me.
Goodbye, Dark Feminine. Hello, Bisexual Assassin.