It would seem that every time I talk to a femme, my friend's disregard my incredibly painful attempt to connect with a person that I'm attracted to on the basis of my alleged preference for extremely dyke-y butch girls. They may be right, but how important can a hair cut and boy clothes really be? What really makes a butch anyway? Is it a matter of visuals? Hair? Wife beaters? Cargo shorts? Comfortable shoes? Or, is it an approach to relationships? Does opening car doors make the butch? Paying for dinner? Taking on a "traditionally" masculine role? Is there a hint of misogyny to it? Does one have to have an intense need to prove that she is hard, tough, or in control to be a real butch? Is a butch defined by a socially identifiable as masculine urge to fuck and run? It would seem to me that very few, if any, females I know meet the bulk of this criteria.
I joined the Butch Femme Social Club of Los Angeles for a moment and at our first meeting, the founder of the group introduced herself and explained to us what she felt it meant to be a butch. Her version of butch-ness was the least sexy thing that I've heard in my entire life. She was extremely proud of the fact that she had managed to purchase an idyllic house in the valley with a white picket fence (where she intended to raise a family). She yearned to shower her future wife with roses. The little known fact about her, that you'd hardly guess on first sight (unless you've dated a series of butch women), was that she really looked forward to carrying a child one day. Her one redeeming quality was the fact that she rode a motorcycle, but she ruined even that by clarifying that she only rode it on city streets as she perceived highways as "too dangerous". Swoon. Her definition of butchness is deeply rooted in a commitment to the 1950s ideal of the nuclear family, with her enacting the MAN role, with the sole twist of popping at least one baby from her own uterus. If that is what makes a butch, then no, I am NOT attracted to butch women.
My friend Ana is a lesser example of the same thing. She too looks the part of the butch, though, I suppose less theatrically (no leather, no motorcycle). I often liken her to Homer Simpson and rub her belly as I'm inappropriate, but the simile falls short in so much as that a huge part of what she wants is to be very successful, very wealthy, and have a woman who she can impress (and control) through the merit of her material gains. She has strong ideas about how women should present themselves, act, and what they should and should not be able to speak of in her 'masculine' presence. Suffice it to say: Do not ask Ana for a tampon. Again, if this is what makes the butch? I say "No, thank you."
I've only really been incredibly serious about two females. They did not, to my knowledge, think of me as property, or a subject in their kingdom. They did however look awfully funny in skirts. I burdened #1 in a period when she was a relatively new lesbian. She identified a little creepily with Shane on the L Word and used this logic to treat me like shit. We had a whole lot of this:
Every time she fucked me over, she explained that she was "like a guy". I'm not sure if all men would be pleased to hear this sentiment, but the bottom line is that she had intense Daddy issues which fell more in line with Tommy Walker from Brothers and Sisters than they did with Drew Barrymore's formative years. She liked beer, college football, sexual escapades with strangers, Antiflag, and Guitar Hero. She wrote stories primarily from the male perspective and she did so very convincingly. She expressed a minor discomfort with her biological identity as a female, and yet really wanted to carry a child. She also loved stuffed animals, never left the house without gobs of make up, and looked pretty damn fucking sexy in lace and a pink & white striped shirt from J. Crew. Per traditional butch duties, I drove, carried the groceries, painted her room, paid for most dinners, and drove to her house in the middle of the night to rescue her from a cockroach. I enjoyed doing all of these things. I may have joked that she was my boyfriend on occasion, but she could have just as easily returned the same sentiment.
Mr. J also looked awfully amusing in female clothes. However, where #1 argued that she was in fact like a boy, Mr. J, also identifiable as my former Jentleman, was distinctly female in the way that she approached our "relationship". Indeed in calling her by names such as Mr. J and/or Jentleman, I was very much kidding. I guess that the dynamic of our insanity was in terms of butch/femme a closer match to Diana Cage & Professor Crandall's relatively modern approach to butch/femme wherein the 1950s ideal is turned on it's head by both involves being switches in the bedroom and/or a butch bottom and a femme top. However, I failed to live up to this ideal the moment I discovered that while extraordinarily active in the bedroom, and very much a fan of control, I'd rather catch than pitch, so to speak. It also drove me absolutely out of my mind to be driven, and I felt like a total bum when she treated me (& my merry men) cover to a drinking establishment. I was alright with the car door opening & ceremony, but anywhere that actual control was sacrificed, I felt extraordinarily uncomfortable. Thus, I suppose that was the closest thing I've experienced to a traditional butch/femme relationship and I was not a fan.
Thus, perhaps, for me butch best ends with a haircut, wifebeater, and genderplay in terms of terminology rather than actual action. I have an undeniable thing for girls who do boy better. I like wifebeaters, cargo shorts, man jackets, andro t-shirts, ripped jeans, converses, and short hair. However, I know at least two females who adamantly disagree that this alone is the formation of a butch. Where do tomboys end and butches begin? Could I be perceived as a butch bottom given the 'masculine' role that I seem inclined to take in any relationship? What of women who are sirred more often than they are mammed and yet at the same time whine like no other about the pains of romance?
If the traditional girl role is to present herself physically in a way that attracts mates, and what will attract the most mates in any lesbian community is a wifebeater, boy pants, and a short haircut, then does any girl in a wifebeater become a butch, or are these girls the ultimate, well, girl, a strange lesbian hybrid of a girly girl who only thinks about boys. If not every girl who wears the uniform warrants the title, then what makes the title. If butch is more of an approach to dating than it is a physical identity, then am I in fact, kind of butch? Can I be a butch in that adorable blue dress with the polka dots I recently acquired?
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