so what do you call these creatures of sugar and spice and everything nice? mature but cute; sharp but soft? disco dollie?
there's no excuse for not knowing a person's name, but at times, a pronoun is needed. female sounds too clinical. "last night i had coffee with a female."
a huuman female, says the ferengi; a female of the species says the scientist with his clipboard.
i am partial to girl, it has the whole grrrl thing going for it which combines cute with sassyness, but in some contexts sounds a bit lecherous. Then of course there is woman. This is best, but doesn't sound very approachable, particularly with the political overthrow of "e," long live "y." i'd rather not start a linguistic civil war.
so i say "femmes." it sounds aesthetically pleasing to me, an abbreviated but straightforward gender description -- for those of you with straight-up genders.
i don't know when i started using femmes, maybe a vestigial meme of listening to violent femmes when i was a freshman in college. go figure.
then there's baby. so cheesy and nonchalant. the only man that can pull that off is nick cave. I used to think he was the only person that could pull it off, but i've a femme friend that uses it, and it is actually endearing. regardless, i shall end before slipping into the brink of using a pronoun as a means of objectification.
sincerely -- your choad