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Butch identity

  • 01-07-2011 11:37PM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,510 ✭✭✭


    Another spin-off thread, from the clothing and dapper lesbians thread...

    What do people think when they see or hear the word 'butch'? I think that for a lot of the community, butch is like the girl version of camp- it's the thing that makes the rest look bad to lots of people. Butch lesbians are the reason we're so often equated to 'wanting to be men'. Very butch women can be pretty intimidating, too, if reports from lesbians on the DUblin scene are to be trusted (my own experiences years ago included).

    I both see myself as butch and femme, and I like that. I like that I wear mens styles cut for my body. I LOVE being a woman (25 days out of the month, anyway...) and I don't dress to hide that side of me.

    I also wonder about women who are attracted to butch women- women like me and butcher. Like apache said in the other thread, what about butch women who are attracted to other butch women? For some reason it's seen as normal for a lesbian to fancy femme girls, but like a dirty secret if you fancy a butch girl? WHat gives?

    I saw this on yahoo answers a while ago, I hope it's ok to repost it, I know it's long... It's just interesting. I know I found it useful in trying to big up my confidence about being slightly butch...
    Ooh, what a delightful question. I love everything about butch women, and I always have. More feminine girls just don't do anything for me sexually- I can objectively admire their beauty and sexiness, but in the end, it's when I see a woman who is androgynous, boyish, or plain out manly, my heart starts to pitter-patter. So let me sing an ode to butches here, because far too often all I see is "Eww, yuck, I like my women to look like women!", and that's so sad.

    I love butch hair. I like the way the women who wear it- whether it's short or long- use their hair in a completely different way than do feminine women- they don't flip it or toss it or curl it around their fingers, but sometimes they run their hands through it that special way. I love the way short hair looks so distinguished on a strong face that would otherwise be hidden by length, and I love the way a shaved butch head both reveals a butch's masculinity in attitude, and femininity in the face and head that emerge.

    I love butch faces. I love the androgynous and tomboyish faces that are beautiful, elvish, almost- the girls who could be extraordinarily beautiful in femme drag. But more than that I love the butch faces that can't do that- that look ridiculous when painted up and framed by a wig. I love strong, square jaws that are firmly held rather than slack. I love high foreheads and thick brows that other people would probably want to pluck and shape. I love butch eyes, that are always so extraordinary. Not hidden by tons of makeup or weighted down with the way femme women often look away, it's like looking into their souls. I love the way a butch speaks with her eyes- those direct stares that say "I love you." or make you break out in a hot flush from across the room. I love butch mouths, which are the ultimate combination: soft and sensuous girl lips that don't act like girl lips- no pouting or worried thinning or other 'femme' signs.

    I love butch bodies, every way they come. I like the way that the butch female form is somehow hidden in its clothing- from the T-shirt and jeans to the sharpest cut suit, you can always tell it's there, in the hips, the luscious curve of breast, but it's not on display the way femme clothing screams "boobs here! butt here!". I love muscles on a woman's body, more than the average sporty femme should have, bulging, tensing. I love butches who don't shave their legs or their armpits, who own the hair on their body, and how though it's long, most people don't realize it's downy soft, too, a beautiful covering. I love butch boobs, because they are such a prize, alternatively hated and ignored by their owners. I love little butch t*ts and big butch t*ts- I love the shape they make on a boxy body and I adore the juxtaposition of hard muscle, soft breast. I love to see a butch unwind her binding and the breasts to spill out like presents, and then get wrapped up again for the world, a secret only I've had access to. I love butch legs and torsos- they are so often trunk-like, solid. Even when they're scrawny, they have a centeredness, a strength. Muscled butch legs, smooth or hairy, get me every time. I love the way so many butches adorn their bodies, bodies that aren't supposed to be, but get decorated anyways- butch piercings and tattoos- a ring around a bicep makes me melt. I love the way butches smell- not cloyingly, sickeningly sweet like femmes' perfume or other body scents, but clean, fresh, sometimes musky and sour with cologne, but always different, always, somehow, natural.

    I love butch fashion- I am quite simply and utterly delighted by the way women wear what's regarded as men's clothing. For anyone who's ever thought that butches are lazy dressers, I want to point out the woman who looks so utterly dashing in her suit and tie, or just a dress shirt and slacks, the boi who is able to rock a Justin Timberlake look, right down to the fedora, who makes a wifebeater look as tasty as it can be, who make men in theirs look sallowly concave at the chest. I love the studded belts that punk butches wear, the boys jeans that fit off-kilter around their hips just enough. I cannot begin to explain the heat it generates to see a butch in boxers, or better yet, boxer-briefs or boy's underwear, those legs branching up to the three-pronged cut, the flap lying flat and empty, or maybe bulging with a packer. I love the fact that nearly every butch owns a pair of boots, solid, thundering boots that look so army powerful and commanding when they wear them. I love a woman in men's clothing.

    I love the way butches act. I love the particular way a butch woman acts "like a man", but with a woman's way- gentlemanly ettiquette and all. I don't know how to describe that it's not hardly even the butch qualities (sitting wide-legged and spread out, standing tall and firm), but rather how comfortable and natural she is being that way that makes it so good. I love the way butches are playful and funny but not coy or manipulative- I love their straight-forwardness. I love that "bulldagger swagger" so full of confidence and seriousness, that peacock strut. I love the way butches feel a masculine sense of obligation and duty and protection, but it doesn't translate into male ego. My heart squeezes at the way butches deal with their emotions- sometimes hiding it, swallowing it down, and that facade of pride and bravado. I love the way butches act- so confident, so gentlemanly, so tough. I love butch voices- the ones that are pitched too low, but refuse to take on the sort of drawl that would turn it into a throaty, sultry femme voice. I love the way butches can navigate the world- not in competition with men, but buddies and friends, and yet slide into women's land and have that identity, too.

    I love the way butches have sex- how they know just what to do, and want to do it so very badly. I love the way butches use their hands like sex organs for delicate handlings. I love the outline of a strap-on contained in jeans or underwear. I love butches who can orgasm by jerking off their silicone c*cks, whose metaphysical erections are so strong in their minds that the touch practically translates. I absolutely am addicted to the faces of butch pleasure- the eyes rolling back in the head, the body shudders, the complete way a feminine orgasm rolls through a butch body, made masculine by it. I love butches who top but more I love butches who bottom or do both- I am drawn to butch women who know that being touched and penetrated and pleasured doesn't invalidate her butchness, doesn't feminize her, doesn't equal submission. I love butches who are into BDSM, who look fantastic in leather and who take slow, careful deliberation in their acts, who wear that power like an easy mantle. I love butches who love other butches as well as femmes- those girls who know the true pleasures of same-sex relations, when the sameness is in two butch bodies banging together, mirror images, same intense ferocity and heat.

    But perhaps most of all, I love butches for who they are in this world. My heart aches and yearns for the strength I feel from them, how every day they walk the world looking the way they do and basically inviting- and then bearing- attacks for not giving up and conforming to feminine ideals. I love them for being who they are, and not letting anyone tell them that women do not have crew cuts, or women don't wear ties, or women must be this, or must be that.

    Simply put, I am in love and lust with butches, and I don't care if other people aren't (you can't control what you like), but I want them to understand that butches can be- and are- desirable.

    So what do people think? Perhaps butch is a state of mind rather than a concrete 'thing'?


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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭apache


    em i think it was me who said about butch women being attracted to butch women not kanoe :rolleyes:
    please amend that copyright :P

    i will read this in due course. cheers zoegh :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,510 ✭✭✭baby and crumble


    My heartiest apologies!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 452 ✭✭Platinum2010


    I think to be butch is not necessarily a lesbian only thing to be honest
    Butch means certain things to certain people

    To some people I know they classify someone with hard skin and a broad back as butch . To them butch is a physicality thing

    To me Butch and baby dyk* are seperate concepts

    Butch in my mind is a streetwise person who is more or less fearless and used to street life , I'm not talking thuggish but more like ..... Been through hardships and is prepared for anything really . It's a way of life like straight men trying to prove their macho ness .
    I think a butch woman is more of a deep rooted feminist kinda thing
    whereas baby dyk* is more about style


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,522 ✭✭✭Kanoe


    that reads like porn, delishious

    and you found this on yahoo you say ?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,510 ✭✭✭baby and crumble


    I think a butch woman is more of a deep rooted feminist kinda thing
    whereas baby dyk* is more about style

    Hmmm... not sure if I agree, just personally. I agree with what you say about butch being a personality thing, perhaps, but I think the same is true of baby dyke. When I think of baby dyke I think of someone new to the scene, most likely looking like Justin Bieber or the girl equivalent and looking slightly scared and cocky at the same time...

    God, that's very judgy of me! oh well.
    kanoe wrote:
    that reads like porn, delishious

    and you found this on yahoo you say ?

    Indeed, on yahoo question, at this link; http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080423150826AAlBRYx

    It's quite a sexy description, eh? It's nice to see stuff like that written, not just celebrating the standard idea of female beauty. I like it.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 452 ✭✭Platinum2010


    zoegh wrote: »
    Hmmm... not sure if I agree, just personally. I agree with what you say about butch being a personality thing, perhaps, but I think the same is true of baby dyke. When I think of baby dyke I think of someone new to the scene, looking slightly scared and cocky at the same time...

    I think the baby thing suggests new to the scene but I think Dykish ness is more of a style / attitude rather than a personality


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,522 ✭✭✭Kanoe


    zoegh wrote: »

    It's quite a sexy description, eh? It's nice to see stuff like that written, not just celebrating the standard idea of female beauty. I like it.
    see, I think this is the crux of the matter. It's a good topic for discussion, I just have to have a little think first.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,522 ✭✭✭Kanoe


    That text is so lovely I don't want to detract from it at all, it really says all that should be said on the topic.
    zoegh wrote: »
    not just celebrating the standard idea of female beauty.
    but this is the part I probably should have highlighted. The original question to this response was do you considered butches attractive?
    which is not really the same as how do you feel about the word butch.

    or is it?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,510 ✭✭✭baby and crumble


    It was more the concepts that the word conjure up than the word itself. Like is it negative?

    I generally don't find butch women attractive, however it's not because I find them 'too manly' or something. I think it's because I identify more as butch than anything, and I find it a bit... egoistic to find yourself attractive... plus in general you dislike the traits you see in others which you share, so... And thee have been butches i see as attracitve, mostly because i'm jealous of some of their wardrobe (a la this lady)

    I guess something I found interesting is take for example the Afterellen Hot 100- very few women on that are what many would class as 'butch'... why is that?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,522 ✭✭✭Kanoe


    That's how I feel but then I have only been "dating" other women for twoish years and I'm finding my tastes have changed, as I have during the process.
    I know I referred to a specific case on the other thread but it genuinely was people like that who clouded my views on butch lesbians when I was setting out and it's not because she's a butch lesbian but unfortunately that's all I could see. I was walking with a friend yesterday and same girl (middle aged woman) comes up the rear and started roaring randomly in our direction, seeking a reaction, we both ignored her..we had kids with us and everything ffs and it's people like that who give butch a bad name. To me it's repulsive behaviour and unfortunately I associated it with what butch means for a long time.

    [edit; and i don't even know this person]


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,067 ✭✭✭shoegirl


    Generally the hostility to "butch" is down to perceived or real agression.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,522 ✭✭✭Kanoe




  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,522 ✭✭✭Kanoe


    I still want to punch her in the face though


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,220 ✭✭✭Ambersky


    Kanoe Some interesting coments on just what constitutes a Butch in that After Ellen article on the Top 15 Butches.

    This link has images of women that are described as androgynous.
    Some of them look like they lean towards butch in my opinion and some look like femmes in suits .
    Have a look and see what you think.
    Here are some of the more butch examples, all in the interest of developing an understanding and appreciation and all ;)
    http://bulle.yagg.com/2011/06/27/landrogynie-de-la-fascination-au-fantasme-ou-pas/

    3544827867_05530e1ebc.jpg

    picture-32.png

    andro.jpg

    4768973110_9801d70af2.jpg


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 27,377 CMod ✭✭✭✭spurious


    Butch women. Nyom.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,522 ✭✭✭Kanoe


    I can totally appreciate it Ambersky, in fact it was a hot butchesque woman I saw once who triggered this process for me. I remember vividly everything about her from the shape of her clothes to the tattoo's on her arms. I knew she wasn't Irish and she was only here for a short stay and I was supposed to be watching hot air balloons but I was completely distracted because she was so intriguing to me. I knew when I saw her that she was me, or at least that's who and how I am and I really needed to be that, to express it and I started the coming out process with myself.
    So maybe it is a little of what Zeogh (baby and crumble :P) described earlier about not being attracted to aspects of yourself in others but I can very much appreciate it.

    Ultimately though it is personality I am attracted to, I mean if someone is a right díck, I'm not going to be swayed regardless of how good they look.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭apache


    oh goddess i don't know where to start here and if i do i will go on for ages :(


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 452 ✭✭Platinum2010


    omg people need to stop posting Sam Ronson pics or there will be a river on my floor


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭apache


    omg people need to stop posting Sam Ronson pics or there will be a river on my floor
    thought you were looking for a femme :confused:
    lesbians are so confusing :(


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 452 ✭✭Platinum2010


    apache wrote: »
    thought you were looking for a femme :confused:
    lesbians are so confusing :(

    No I was just saying they are hard to find , im not picky though
    anything well kept is fine for me


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭apache


    ok
    *disbelieving stare*


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,510 ✭✭✭baby and crumble


    See now, most of those pics ambersky posted are not what I would consider pics f 'butch' women. Sam Ronson really doesn't strike me as butch. Not sure why though...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭apache


    apache wrote: »
    oh goddess i don't know where to start here and if i do i will go on for ages :(
    i'm glad i had the common sense to say this. :D

    maybe another time.....


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭apache


    @ zeogh "This is what I'm terrified of also, of being thought of in those terms... mean I have a tattoo but it's all purple and pretty... "

    this was your quote in another thread. and there is a few more. i struggle to find why you say you are one thing yet shy away from another :confused:

    what are you? i know what i am but i find these boards quite juvenile with these remarks to be honest. no offence but when i saw the silly stuff in the the butch thread i thought was is the point in explaining things?

    the only thing i can be here is juvenile because that is the only way i fit in. it seems to be the consensus.

    but that wears thin after a while. :mad:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,510 ✭✭✭baby and crumble


    apache wrote:
    @ zeogh "This is what I'm terrified of also, of being thought of in those terms... mean I have a tattoo but it's all purple and pretty... "

    this was your quote in another thread. and there is a few more. i struggle to find why you say you are one thing yet shy away from another

    what are you? i know what i am but i find these boards quite juvenile with these remarks to be honest. no offence but when i saw the silly stuff in the the butch thread i thought was is the point in explaining things?

    (zoegh here, I changed my name)

    I don't really understand your points, apache. I never said I "was" anything. That was my point, I have no idea. There are elements of me that are butch, elements that aren't.

    What silly stuff are you talking about?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭apache


    See now, most of those pics ambersky posted are not what I would consider pics f 'butch' women. Sam Ronson really doesn't strike me as butch. Not sure why though...
    she was probably going for the adronygous (sic) angle. well thats what i took from it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,220 ✭✭✭Ambersky


    For those who didnt find the previous images butch enough
    How is this, any better? ;)
    Im just putting up a few images for the fun of it.
    Kind of enjoy a bit of butch appreciation so what the heck.
    the link Kanoe put up earlier http://www.afterellen.com/people/2007/7/topbutches to After Ellen had a bit of a discussion on what different women found Butch or Not.

    Catherine+Opie+1.jpg

    http://cb.pbsstatic.com/l/59/0059/9781860470059.jpg NSFW

    http://www.dellagracevolcano.com/classics.html#6 NSFW

    http://www.dellagracevolcano.com/dragkings.html#3


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭apache


    (zoegh here, I changed my name)

    I don't really understand your points, apache. I never said I "was" anything. That was my point, I have no idea. There are elements of me that are butch, elements that aren't.

    What silly stuff are you talking about?
    being worried that you are portrayed to a certain element in the young lesbian community? you have already said it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,510 ✭✭✭baby and crumble


    I never said anyone wasn't 'butch enough'?? I just don't think of Sam Ronson as butch, but that is my take on it. Androgyny isn't butch, by definition, really.

    And of course I worry about how I'm presenting myself to other people. Is that not what humans do? Many people here have said that the butch women in Ireland in particular are seen as aggressive and confrontational. I don't want to be percieved like that because of the way I dress. Surely that makes sense?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,220 ✭✭✭Ambersky


    Maybe if you butch up a bit deliberately Baby and Crumble and get some positive feedback, you wont mind


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