Know Your History: Flagging, Femme Flagging, and Queer Modes of Communication
Recently, among the assortment of blogs that I follow with an emphasis on femme identity, there has been a movement around what people have been calling “femme flagging.” There are many potential meanings embedded within this phrase, but most often it has been referring to the use of unique nail polish color coding as an adaptation of the historic hanky code. Additionally, some of the bloggers discuss their color choices from places of significance, explaining their choices and attempting to claim a dismantling of the male-centrism of the traditional code through them. In repeatedly encountering these posts, however, I see what I consider a number of problems with this form of “femme flagging.”
Flagging, or the use of the hanky code, originated in 1970s bar culture as a way to indicate particular sexual interests. Particularly because of the danger of cruising culture, the continued frequency of police raids, and the difficulty of forming networks under this sort of surveillance, the hanky code provided an opening for conversation and negotiation that was a known quantity; you could spot others with like interests and approach them in the bars with less difficulty/awkwardness/etc. Flagging is also part of an historic sexual culture that has been suppressed in many ways since the development of AIDS as a part of gay consciousness.
While the hanky code certainly was dominated by men and many of the acts listed on the more standardized codes refer to activities more common in gay male communities, the later 1980s and early 1990s saw an increase in the use of the hanky code by lesbians with the rise of leatherdyke community and bars (see Leatherdykes Under The Skin by Marti Hohmann in the Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, April 30, 1997). Additionally, the code is flexible depending on region and community – although it has become more standardized because of the internet – and so was really quite adaptable to adoption by lesbians.
Although flexible, what many of the recent blog posts about “femme flagging” seem to miss is that there is definitely a degree of standardization, particularly around sex acts that were primary to the code (black is always SM, foot fetishes are almost always coral, anal sex is dark blue, oral is light blue, toys have become generally standardized as pink, and so forth…), and additionally, differentiation between right/left/center is always important in describing role preferences. What these femmes who flag with nail polish haven’t been doing, as a start, is using a standard code. If there isn’t a standard, no one can understand it and it fails to produce the sort of sexual communication openings that are otherwise present. Imagine trying to use a different dot/dash code, rather than Morse code, and assuming that it could be immediately useful or evident – that is often what these nail polish patterns look like. Without standardization, you don’t have a code or a linguistic system or anything else. Additionally, many of the femmes writing about this type of flagging paint their fingers different colors things, but those colors often cross sides so that top/bottom roles are erased.
On a larger platform, femmes have been talking about flagging for at least several years now and there have been a number of different solutions posed, but the use of things like nail polish and hair ribbons – in every workshop or larger conversation I have ever found myself in about non-traditional forms of flagging – have been dismissed because they fail to provide the necessary symbolic material. Most people don’t just walk around with bandanas attached to them in various ways, but plenty of femmes have their nails painted or ribbons in their hair that are about other dimensions of their presentation.
Instead, femmes have been creative and inventive in ways that respect the historic code and make it work for those of us who don’t have pockets all the time. Tying your hanky around your ankle or mid thigh is relatively popular, as is tying it to your purse and just making sure you’re carrying your bag on the correct side. One of the favored ways is the creation of hanky flowers, flower shaped pins made out of the traditional flagging hankies so as to preserve the color and pattern schemes that are historically part of the code, while embracing femme gender presentation. There are plenty of us actively finding new ways to flag that don’t demand pockets but that still engage with and respect the historic code.
I would be interested in some of the discussions of breaking away from the gay male bias of the hanky code that some of these femmes mention in passing if it successfully did something more than say, ‘we’re not men and we don’t want to do it their way.’ I have yet to see an articulation of the hanky code that addresses its historical roots as problematic in a way that is constructive.
I – and many of my friends – are enthusiastically working to bring flagging into greater use in our community, and as femmes, we have to develop new ways to do it. But we also want to be understood. We want to effectively communicate our desires. And, importantly, we don’t want to toss the past out the window because we come from a powerful queer history and knowing it and continuing to talk about it is important.*
*Lesbian feminism and LGBTQ history are another topic I want to address at some point, and it is tied up in this issue and in many intergenerational rifts that we continue to face in academic and activist communities.
