Pillow Princess, a queer woman, or human for that matter, that prefers to receive rather than give during sexual encounters. A term that is often used as an insult. No one wants to be a pillow princess, no one will admit they are a pillow princess, being a pillow princess means being selfish, spoilt and is often interwoven with a multitude of other stereotypes.
As a very hyper-feminine queer Femme I am very well acquainted with the term. We have a longstanding relationship. Beginning from my early days as a freshly out and about baby-femme. The term seems to be often triggered by someone’s presentation. Make-up, heels and long nails means that the diagnosis is certain: you are very likely to be a pillow princess. I recall one encounter, one of many, where I was out with a group of friends and a potential suitor. One of my acquaintances declared in front of the whole group: “How do you even get any women? What do you do with them? We all know you don’t fuck them! Look at your nails, you are such a pillow princess.” Charming. As one can imagine I was highly embarrassed. Another more recent encounter, was on national television where my date thought it was appropriate to enquire before the main course arrived whether or not I was a pillow princess, which seemed to have been a crucial piece of information needed, just so the roles are clear in case we were planning to have a brief tête-à-tête in between courses.
Commonality of these encounters is that there is always an element of shame present. Especially in the first example, I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed of how my presentation was read and I was ashamed that maybe indeed I was not performing sexually as I was supposed to.
I would hope that the reader at this point already suspects that the current use of this term might be problematic.
Putting shame into female (or feminine) sexuality is nothing new, it’s not a queer phenomenon, we find it everywhere. We have been taught to think this way, so it should come as little surprise that we have internalised it. What, however, I do think is specific to queer context is, with how much conviction this is claimed to be perfectly aligned with queer politics and how little it is challenged.
The whole concept behind pillow princess is to devalue, what we already are accostumed to in heteronormative culture, the one that is “being fucked”, in contrast to the “fucker” – the latter, a worthy, strong role, the former not so much. It keeps alive the policing of what and how the feminine is allowed to desire. Similar to the normative imagination of cishet women, Femmes are imagined and often desired as the submissive ones, the ones that are being fucked. The passivity of this role extends to consciousness: the Femme must not consciously, actively and willingly claim this role but rather passively endure that this role has been imagined for the Femme.
If the Femme dares to do the opposite and consciously reclaim this role and use it to affirm their own desire, deciding what sexual and intimate acts they long for and articulating clear boundaries, then they destroy the above described imagined. This behaviour gets punished by declaring that this behaviour, let me call it subversive submission, is outrageously selfish. An individual, that is supposed to be fucked, now reclaims that role and through that reverses it. Through the mere act of owning this decision, it has become selfish and undesirable, and something that urgently needs to be policed; hence the shaming. If one follows this thought further one might wonder if the allure lies in the external forcible subscription of this role, not the role itself.
So we have now someone that removes themselves from fulfilling misogynistic understanding of feminine sexuality, denies to take part in it, by rejecting expectations and self-proclaiming deviant passivity. If we think of queer as critical oppositionality of the norm, us pillow princesses are queering the normativity out of fucking.
Understanding bottoming as a subversive act, allowed me to reclaim pillow princess. I am proud to have reached the point in my lifer where I have no fear of articulating my ever-shifting and evolving dersires, to set up clear boundaries that I feel comfortable with, to not have to fulfill expectations and rolls but rather explore a variety of facets of my intimate longings, without feeling guilt about my inconsistencies. I would propose that we all allow ourselves to let out our inner pillow princess once in the while, because we all deserve to not have to perform the expected.