Sinful Sunday…”Soft”

I follow a few bloggers on WordPress who participate in the “Sinful Sunday”challenges. I’ve been reading and checking their pics for a good while now but haven’t had the gumption to jump in…well here goes!

I randomly shot this pic after a very hot tussle with my girl.

We recently had matching tattoos done, hers above, on her hip. Mine on my left inside forearm. Really like them, the guy did a sweet job! Good thing, it was her first tat! I was proud of her for handling it very well.

I’ve been more of a lurker on the “Sinful Sunday” blogs, so I thought it was time for me to start trying to post more. You can see more of the Sinful Sunday contributions from various bloggers by clicking on the lips below!

Those Darned Definitions…

Man!  Has language changed some radically since I’ve been walking this green earth.  Daily I am surprised by the “new” use of “old” words; the newer definitions and meanings of some.  Start with the word we all know and use in a zillion different ways:  Queer.  Now we know the dictionary meaning to be “odd or unusual” to be short.  But then we all know the meaning when it’s used to describe someone’s sexual preference for the same sex…i.e. “He/she is queer as a three dollar bill.”  meaning that he/she is gay…another word…Gay….now that is supposed to mean “happy and joyful” by the dictionary, but when used to describe me it means I like pussy, and I’m a bit queer.

Today’s LGBT world (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, for those who may not really know what the letters represent, seriously.)  Yes, where was I …in today’s world we are constantly changing up language.  It’s a far cry from what it was like in the 70’s when I was growing up.  Or the 80’s when I was just coming out and defying the world with my gayness.

There are so many words now to describe or to define who one is in the world.  I could not possibly do justice to all of them here, but I will take a stab at a few of the more common ones just for fun.

There’s the all famous Butch.  The definition of Butch varies so widely now that I am not sure if I am even still Butch!  Hell, it seemed easy when I finally did define myself as such, it felt wholesome and right.  I was a masculine presenting woman.  Butch.  It is my identity, my definition of me.  But what it means to me and what it means to other people can really be confusingly different.  I define Butch for myself as a masculine woman.  A woman who is more comfortable walking the masculine side of the binary, but who is not a man and does not necessarily want to be a man.  (Some people are convinced that all Butch women secretly just want to be men – both straight people and other LGBT people have been known to say this more than once).  I want to wear my jeans and workboots; flannel shirts are a must to my Butch wardrobe.  I don’t walk like a girl, or talk like one.  My voice is very deep, raspy and quite often mistaken for a male voice on the phone.  Plain and simple for me, it’s just how I was constructed by life.   I am a masculine woman, a Butch to the core.  Of course, this is just my definition and will certainly vary from yours or someone elses.

Femme is another widely varying word.  It’s gained some serious notoriety and popularity in the last 10 years I believe.  We have had the word Butch for so long and it’s been more popular for the last 100 years than I think Femme has been.  In my experience I didn’t really have a word for the type of women that I found super attractive until I discovered the word “Femme”.  To me Femme means a very feminine presenting woman.  A woman who revels in the glories of being very feminine appearing, acting and who is often attracted to her polar opposite – the Butch.  (I know this is not always the case, I am aware that Butch/Femme is only one dynamic, and that there are others, please don’t shoot me).

Now there are all these fun descriptive words that you can throw together with Butch and Femme.  There’s about 100 ways to be Butch or to dilute it, which ever you think is happening. Personally, I think the dilution factor is more of what is taking place.  Historically we know that the Butch-femme dynamic kind of started as a cover so that women could see one another  and appear to be a hetero couple…they were hiding from the law and society basically. There’s a LOT more to the history than this, I am seriously over simplifying here for brevity.

Today we have baby Butches, Tomboi Butches, Soft Butches, Hard Butches, Stone Butches, Daddi Butches, etc. etc.  I am sure I have missed a dozen or so other types here…but you should get the gist of where I am going with this. It’s a hard thing to just say Butch is Butch nowadays, because there are so many layers and depths to each “type”.  If you look in Wikipedia or do a Google search for any one of the types you are bound to come up with more reading than you probably need to get to the point.  You can be whatever you choose, and you can define it in any way you want along the squiggly line of the binary.

Same with the femmes, you have the high femmes, diva femmes, lipstick lesbians, queer femmes, and that list goes on and on as well.  I am not as familiar with it as I am with the Butch side of things, obviously and for obvious reasons.  All I know is that I really love femme women.  And the way they embody their femininity is up to each one of them, they can put on a baseball cap and pull the pony tail through the back and still be a diva femme.  It’s all in the attitude I have come to realize with femmes.  They have this great attitude about femininity and they revel in it.

Today’s younger crowd has a ton of other new words too that I just don’t understand.  I’ve come to the realization that I am too old for some of this new wording. But I want to learn!

Personally, I used to identify as a Stone Butch.  I am not so sure about seriously identifying with the “stone” part any longer.  I’m just not sure exactly what stone means to me now.  I know that I am not a “touch me not” Butch, as the word “stone” is supposed to imply in some circles.  I don’t care for some things; for some forms of touch, but I do like to be loved on quite a lot!  I enjoy sex, and sometimes I think the the inference to “stone” is that he/she is not someone who likes to be touched or who enjoys any kind of sexual touch.  I have to say I enjoy both.  While I have my limitations, and my boundaries that doesn’t negate the fact that I am human and need human interaction and touch.  Hell, I love sex.

Stone is a word that gets thrown around a lot more as I’ve noticed lately. I even see it in reference to “stone femmes” now, which I never encountered before say the last year or so.  I’m not sure of how that definition would read or what it would be.  Perhaps one of you readers have more information on this one, or some anecdotes to share on it.  I see it on Fetlife quite often and wonder about it.

So, these are my more random thoughts for today’s blog.  I was just pondering word-smithing and how radically language in the gay community has changed over the decades. Words seem to come into fashion and fade just as quickly sometimes.  It’s interesting as fuck.  You may see me write a bit more about this, perhaps from a more serious angle next time, tonight I am in a fun mood and wanted to keep it fairly light.

Rock on.

~MB

 

 

 

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The Christmas Blues

What is the real meaning of being alone. What do each of us consider when we say that we feel alone or that we are alone? I’m sitting here tonight, my friend from the neighborhood is here, playing on her computer in the living room. We just hang this way sometimes. She comes over and she does her thing and I do mine, it’s just the fact that we aren’t completely alone, and if conversation happens, then great.

The awesome woman that I really want to be spending this time with in these evenings that are leading up to Christmas in 2 days, is so damned far far away. I’m trying to figure out how I am feeling about that right this minute. I knew this was coming, but still I don’t like it. She’s there. I am here. And when I feel strongly like I do about her, I realize that my desire to have her with me gets quite intense.

I was married for a number of years and Christmas was a big deal in our house. I love Christmas myself, but over the last few years I have spent them pretty much alone – solitary, and single. I hate to say I am getting used to it, because I never am used to it. Every year I wish I had my own special person with me; beside me and enjoying each other’s company during what is supposed to be a very festive and loving time of year. It’s hard not having that. I’m really sick of it.

But I’m not so sick of it that I will just settle for anyone to fill that void that I feel in my heart. I’ve never been an easy one to find love with, and I know it. I’m shy, picky and can be difficult in my own ways. But I am also a committed and honest son of a gun, which has got to count for something.

I’d really like to see her soon.  I’m sure it’s scary for both of us, but I think I may be the bolder one in this situation. I’m ready as hell to see her here in front of me, where I can reach our and touch her….Skype and Whatsapp only take this so far. I realize there’s a safety net with the computer…and that she and I actually come from 2 very different places in life both in lifestyle and age…it’s scary any way you look at it I suppose. But I do hope very much to meet her in person in the not too distant future.

I love that she has time for me in her days and I am totally appreciative of it…I don’t know what I would do without being able to see her for days now. I’m completely hooked. I would stay up all night just to talk to her online. I even get up at 2am for our Skype sessions sometimes, just so I can help get her day started off right…..and I know she likes to see me in the morning, so it’s a bonus for me also in getting to see her smiling face. I’m really honored that she’s attracted to me and that we get along so great. Lucky I am.

It’s hard for me to describe Mushy without using the Butch-Femme scale (we all know the scale, but I will put it in after this post.) At first I thought she was more of a 5 ½ or a 6 even, she was very much the rougher side of Femme, but definitely not Butch. After getting to know her better these last 3 months I’d say she’s more of a 4 on the scale – if I had to say. She identifies as neither, I might add. She’s referred to being one of the “normal” lesbians. Which I guess she means that part of the lesbian culture that looks fairly straight, dresses in women’s clothing mostly (not meaning just dresses, but women’s business attire, etc) and have no real idea what Butch or Femme mean, except that they’ve heard them in usually derogatory ways, and that it wasn’t a crowd that she knew. I remember trying to hang with that crowd in the 80’s…we all looked pretty much alike, dressed alike and didn’t “buy in” to the label thing at all. The words Butch, Dyke, and Androgenous were taboo, and usually used as slurs.

I gotta say, there are as many ways to be a lesbian as there are ways to be beans. It’s all just in who you are and how you are raised, and how you are genetically made up. We are each and every one of us unique in some kind of way. That’s what makes us US. While some of us are clearly lesbian, clearly Butch and very visible, (yet also invisible in some ways). We have the disadvantage of not being able to pull off hiding and blending in with a crowd at all. We are unique and we don’t want it brought to our attention much of the time.

I am tired of looking around at just Femmes or those who identify as Femme thinking they are the only viable partners for Butches. Sure they do make wonderful partners for us, and us for them. And there is this cultural understanding between the two that negates some of the uncomfortable questions that come up when you date someone that isn’t familiar with the dynamic. And you can’t blame that person who isn’t familiar for asking the questions either, it’s just normal curiosity; if she’s interested she’ll have questions about you.

I find myself to be so self conscious that I don’t ask enough questions. I wish I wasn’t so shy about it sometime. I’m always afraid that I am going to ask a question that is totally out of line or will be a put off. But eventually I do gather more courage and loosen up as you get to know me and I become more trusting of you. I also have that filter, where I am thinking about 3 thoughts at a time and I can’t speak any one of them out loud….Butches know that feeling I know!!!  The mind is a muddy place sometimes 😉

Femmes know that Butches have a hard time starting conversations. Butches are also afraid of those lesbians that don’t identify too. How do we know what we are expected to do or how we are expected to act if we don’t know which one of us is Butch and which is Femme in the interaction? THAT scares a Butch. We have this inate need to know. I’ve thought a lot about this lately, and seen it play out in my own conversation with the woman I am seeing. She doesn’t fit the Femme scale well, she’s more one of those outside of the scale. She’s a great woman, pretty, smart and super funny. We laugh and laugh together, and I just want to reach through the screen and kiss her all the time….makes me nuts.

I know that dating someone outside of the B-F spectrum is a little different for me; challenging in a very very good way. I’ve dated inside that dynamic for a long time now. My ex-wife while she didn’t particularly identify with any specific label would surely hit dead on to a 5.5 on the proverbial scale. She was feminine as hell, while she could cowgirl up and do a hella job wrangling horses or hauling trees and brush. She was pretty versatile, and I enjoyed that quite a lot. She had her virtues and I certainly had mine in the relationship. We successfully made it work for a good number of years before we grew apart. So I know I can date outside of the dynamic to some extent. I’ve even been more successful there than anywhere else. Hmm…..thought…..

So as you can tell I am thinking about being alone over the holidays, and what that will be like this year.  I am wishing like hell that she could be here with me to laugh, and snuggle and enjoy the holiday glow.   It’s all just sparked my brain to write.  So ye are the subjects of my torture, dear readers.  🙂

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

So my dear readers, I know quite a few of you identify as Butch or Femme, what do you think?

Can we date outside of the dynamic seriously?

What kind of obstacles can you see with dating someone who doesn’t know B-F as a lifestyle?

I’m curious about what you have to say.

Rock on…… ~MB~

Sunday Summary

I attended a massive family event last night.  I was pleased to notice that I am not the only LGBT person there anymore.  My family and friends circle has grown and expanded, and now there are several of us who identify along the spectrum of LGBT.  My niece and her girlfriend and their new puppy were there.  It was fun to see them, young and in love like that.  And there were others, so I wasn’t alone anymore like it used to be years back, when I was the only lesbian in the crowd.  I love that we’ve diversified like this, and that it’s such a non-event for everyone involved.  No one is treated any differently, it’s an equal-love situation for all.  It warms my heart to have such as loving group of family and friends in my life. I truly am one lucky Butch and am blessed beyond belief.

One little boy came up last night and asked the dreaded question….”are you a boy or a girl..?”  He was too young for my standard answer, so I just laughed and answered him simply.  Had he been 3 years older he would have gotten a mini lesson in gendering people so quickly.  But he was a little shit, maybe 4, with a crew cut and his little hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his little jeans.  He looked so cute, and so sincere in asking me.  It’s funny, we teach our children that there is this binary, you are either one or the other.  It was obvious in his question that he had never met anyone quite like me where I present with such androgyny that he could not tell my “real” (I use that word lightly) gender.  I could not explain “Butch” to him, or the fact that my gender lays in the gray area of the binary.  One of my nieces was there listening to he and I’s conversation, and she was snickering to beat the band. It was cute, and funny, but not all at the same time.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to identify as a transguy.  At least then I could just have told him I was a guy.  But I don’t identify as male by any means.  Our beings have 2 maps, one is the physical map of our bodies that says what gender we are, and the other is a mental map that tells us what gender we are.  For cis-gendered people the two maps line up and they instinctively know they are male or female.  It’s a no brainer.  But for us gender bending people, it’s not such an easy line up.  While my maps pretty much match, I lean way over toward the more masculine end of the binary scale.  Now that I have had my chest surgery my maps line up far more closely than before.  If I identified as male mentally that would not be the case, as I would still have body dysphoria – something that I no longer have now.  I’m fine with my body just the way it is now.  I have no wish to be male in body, or in mind.  I’m all good being my bad ass stone Butch lesbian self and walking this world just the way that I am now. I’m kind of a hybrid…the best of both worlds – and sometimes the worst..hehehe…

So, I haven’t heard from the girl I was seeing briefly for a couple of days now (the woman formerly known as Dream Girl), so I assume it’s pretty much ended with us…which kind of bums me out, but hey it’s her choice.  She told me she was just too busy and too stressed out.  But like everyone has told me repeatedly, when someone wants to be with you and likes you they make time for you regardless and if they don’t, then you don’t really matter to them.  So, if I don’t matter to her then I don’t need her in my life wasting my time and energy either.  Plus, it wasn’t like I was asking for a ton of face time either, just some daily dose of her in some ways…texts, emails, Skype…fucking something just to let me know she cared and was thinking of me occasionally would have been nice.

It’s really too bad, because I really was into this woman, and that doesn’t happen for me often.  I could have been very good for her, and we could have been good together.  But, hey, it takes two to tango.  She just didn’t want to dance.  And honestly, it takes a good B-F dance partner to handle me.  It’s not that I require a lot of maintenance, but I do expect daily communication and interaction.  Period.  Tired or not you better find time in there somewhere to be texting me and letting me know that I still matter.  Hell, my days get extremely busy too and I can find spots in there to text my love interest, no matter what, just to let her know she’s on my mind and in my thoughts daily…it’s not so hard to do.

It’s not like we were seeing a whole lot of each other anyway, so I wouldn’t really call what we had a “relationship”.  More of a sort of casual dating thing, with a little sex involved.  We actually only spent 3 times face to face together, and the rest of the time I tried to keep up via Skype, emails and texting.  But it was ME doing most of the work to keep the lines of communication open even a little bit, so I felt like in the end I was chasing a ghost for no reason.  She wasn’t responding and when she did it was short and to the point, never very affectionate at all but very cold and distant.  I was trying to get to know her better, and she was avoiding allowing me to do that.

In the end, I told her I would not chase after her anymore and if she wanted me in her life in anyway that she would have to contact me, which I truly meant.  I felt like I was a total pain in her ass with my texts.  And dammit I was nice.  I tried to leave her to her work and tried to stay low when I knew she was working or busy, but my patience was all for nothing in the end.  She didn’t even have the guts to write and tell me what the hell was going on with her or what she was thinking about us and seeing me.  She just stopped texting me, poof.

I don’t know how people can do that in life to anyone, just vanish.  It’s disrespectful, it’s gutless and it’s wrong.  I’ve never had it happen before, usually there is some final conversation or something, but hey, there’s always a first time for everything, right?  In hindsight I can see that she does have many issues, but I was there and willing to be involved nonetheless, and willing to talk to her and try to help her think stuff through…it wasn’t enough evidently.  I just wanted to get to know her much better, and see where it went from there…not such a big deal really.  She just decided not to let me in, sad, but her loss in the end I believe.  I’m definitely worth a hell of a lot more than being treated like that.

Another blogger on another blogging site, wrote recently about formerly being a “runner”, and I have spoken about this before myself.  Both me and the other blogger had similar experiences where things would become difficult in a relationship and we would run away from it instead of dealing with things maturely and head on.  I was thinking about this, in light of what’s going on in my life today, and realized that that part of me is gone too.  It’s a maturity thing I think. I’m sad to say I am finally mature enough that I understand that relationships are work and it’s not always roses.  Things can be good, bad or difficult, and you still have to work through them because running away doesn’t do a damned bit of good.  I guess we all live and learn in life, and as I get older the lessons become more clear and easier to understand.  That’s one good thing about life experience, and of changing and evolving as a person, you can look back and see your mistakes and know what not to do in the future.

Now, one of the things that I have learned as of late….do not write about who I am dating or seeing in this blog.  So this will be the end of that type of stuff.  I’m going back to keeping my intimate life very personally protected.  I used to be really good about this, but I started to write a little about my dating life recently, and I see now that it is just something I need to keep in my private blog and not in this pubic forum.  I figured I did owe my readers an end to the story of my recent escapades, since I started writing about it and know some people who follow me and are closer friends and care about what’s going on with me.  I may write about relationships and dating, but I won’t be referring to anyone in particular anymore.  It’s just not worth it and in some ways I just need to protect that aspect of my life a bit more now.  It’s all good though, I have plenty of other things to write about !   Peace.  ~MB

My Butch Social Needs…and Denied Gender Choice

I’ve been wrestling my demons like mad lately.  Depression, anxiety, internal strife…the perpetual circle that it has become for me.  It’s kept me from doing things I normally enjoy doing, such as blogging or doing videos on YT.  I also have serious ADHD that plays into it, which I really have to discuss with my doctor on Thursday.  Chronic, debilitating pain I believe is my main stressor that leads me to being depressed.  I’m sure there are also a few other demonic ideas floating in my head that are also fueling the depression/anxiety fires too.   I am here today attempting to do a few things:  break my cycle of doing nothing lately by doing something- writing!  I also want to get some of my thoughts out here so I can perhaps see them and have some kind of epiphany about what to DO about them and this fucked up period that I am stuck in at the moment.

Some days I try to chalk it up to the famale body, that I inhabit, maybe going through some menopausal changes, hell I am 52.  I haven’t had menses since I was 47, my body did go through the up and downs of that, then it just stopped completely after a year of coming and going at will, just being bizarre and unpredictable.  I was so freaking happy I wanted to have a good-bye party for the stupid periods!  I am still a fully in-tact woman inside, but my doc says my organs are definitely shrinking and going through whatever they go through to just become extra baggage (ohhhh, they’ve actually been extra baggage for me forever!).  I’m not sure if my body is still producing estrogen or not, or if that’s even important.  I am on a very low dose of testosterone gel (Androgel 1%) that we added to my regimen to perhaps improve my appetite and energy levels.  It does do both when I stay on it regularly!

I have found myself avoiding the internet lately.  It seems to be being overtaken by separatist lesbians who are busily hating on FtMs as well as on the Butch / Femme lesbian community at large – or at least I seem to be encountering a lot of negative posts and publications online about various people who I know in the B/F community being harassed, cyber-bullied and outright disrespected by other members of the lesbian community at large.  Why does any person think that they are any better? Or that their “way” is a better or more authentic way to life a lesbian life?  We are all unique individuals, and if we could just undertstand and accept that and learn to love and celebrate our uniqueness, instead of trying to force “our preferences” or “understandings of what is right” upon others and trying to force them to swallow those poisonous words, we could be a so much happier and healthier population!

Being so outwardly, openly and authentically Butch I already find myself tip-toeing in steel toe boots through the proverbial minefield of society in general.  Often I am making this journey as the lone-Butch; having no other Butch persons in my neighborhood, and watching them slowly disappear from my social circles.  There is this security that a Butch feels when in the presense of another like gendered person.  It’s that “Whew! I’m really not the only one!” thought that we get from hanging out and swapping war stories with each other.  Usually there’s also a general adoration of Femme lesbians; their ways, their looks, their kisses, that cause us to flash one another the sly-eye, half crooked smile of just knowing what the other is close to thinking.  I miss the fist to the bicep greetings, the smell of 3 out of 4 of us smoking while we scoff our boot toes on the ground, grind our hands into our front jeans pockets and stand in a small circle laughing at the “hey, check this out….” stories of yore.

Most of my interaction with other Butches over the last couple of years has been online, through FB pages and Butch specific websites.  Or through commentary on articles that we are all drawn to – guided to by other life-minds via FB and Twitter cross posts of Butch and Butch/Femme related blogs, newspaper articles, magazine features, and videos (seriously loooove me some Youtube!).  I hate to see the Butch pages dwindle down, which they all seem to do after a while, and then sort of fade off into internet oblivion.

I guess what I am driving at is that I am just damned lonely for more Butch buddies.  Another blogger also seemed to be feeling this way and posted about it today on her blog as well.  Why is is so freaking hard for us to find common ground and stick together a bit harder?  Butches, the ones I am familiar with including myself, are generally a tad shy, leary of people even sometimes, and when we do find a good buddy or two to hang with we can be fierce allies and loyal friends — including in the online realm.  But I think we all are feeling the heat of the wrath of the more separatist lesbian types who really dislike us as Butches, thinking that we are selling out on our femininity, we somehow really want to be men, and that if “they” wanted to date a man, they’d date a real one (ouch).  I know I am weary of fighting it, and explaining how those things are so stupid, and not true or close to a realistic accessment of us.  Blurring the gender line is part of just who I am.  Here’s a paragraphy from Buzz Cuts and Bustiers . com’s latest post on just this topic:

“In addition to all that head stuff, my queer community – something that I leaned on perhaps a bit too heavily – has become a lot smaller. Most of the organizations I was once involved with have dispersed since last summer, including ButchBoi Life, the social and support group that I co-founded for masculine queer women. It sounds a bit melodramatic, but the loss of these networks has been really devastating. I feel increasingly isolated from my community and cut off from resources that I once took for granted. I rarely speak with, let alone hang out with, other butches now, and that makes me very lonely. In a way, I’ve returned to the level of desperation I was at before ButchBoi Life existed, when I was so very starved for interactions with people that walked in my same worn boots and reflected back to me my own reality as a butch dyke.”  (Buzzcutsandbustiers.com)

I completely saw myself and my need for more masculine energy in the form of Butch lesbian friends in my life.  I do hope that this writer of BCB.com will take another swing at restarting the Butch Boi Life group, which I believe is somewhere nearby to Boston, and thus do-able for me, being that I live in the southern most part of Maine and can be in Boston in less than an hour.

I would love to see more of us all getting together – all types of LGBT people.  We need more small town events, local things to connect us on a more regular, and fun, basis.  And they need to be the kind that welcome all of us and our individual spirits; our gender presentations, and our desire to just chill out and be friendly.  Gay Prides used to be about something; about real Pride in who we are and in the progress toward real equality that we continue to work so damned hard for, making those small strides that will eventually lead us to the finish line.  Used to be we had the bars in the ’80’s and ’90’s to some degree, sprinkled in among various major Pride events, The March on the UN, and then we all started to key it up on the computer screens starting around ’92-’93ish, and things have moved very rapidly around the world ever since.  Technology feeds us daily now, and we’re doing less of the good ‘ole face-t0-face kind of networking.  Yeah, I just plain miss that.

Even though I have a great girlfriend in my life, and the company of our two little dogs, plus my large extended family living in the area, I still am lonely for more of my own kind at least occasionally hanging out together to remind each other that we are still indeed part of a community that does need each other.  I tend to envy those in some of the larger southern cities where a good portion of the lesbian community seems to seek homes in, especially later in life.  There are some nice groups in the Floridian cities that get together regularly and seem to have a great time.  I wish either we had that here or I could somehow pull it together to try to create it here in some small way.

Buzz Cuts and Bustiers was talking about Facebook’s new feature of being about to put in your gender.  Like BCaB I too tried to put “Butch” in as my gender, it IS my fucking gender!  I have always seen Butch as a noun; as the gender that I am, and not some nickname, or anything like that.  And I was also saddened not to find Butch or Femme as gender identities, especially when they had some others that I would have questioned far sooner on that list!    They could try listing your gender, then your sexuality or sexual preference…maybe that will be their next attempt at leveling the playing field, so to speak!

For anyone interested in the article that spurred me to rant off like this on my blog here, you can find it at this web address.  It’s a great Butch blog!  Subscribe while you are there!  http://buzzcutsandbustiers.com/2014/02/26/gender-identity-denied/  Rock on world!  ~MainelyButch

Summer is Over!

I just haven’t felt up to writing much lately.  Summer has ended, and I have started a new, part-time, job as some of you know from my Youtube vlogs.  Life has been a little hectic, getting used to a new schedule, dealing with some minor health crisis toward summer’s end and just trying to sort of “re-find” or perhaps better put – redefine – myself a little bit more.  I believe that each day we walk this physical earth that we have to learn and adapt, and change.  If we stop learning and changing then we might as well roll up the dirt and climb in for the long dirt nap.  I love learning, I love change when it’s for the better, and I generally enjoy life most days.  Yes, life here in southern Maine is good, Nola is well and I am definitely ready for some new adventures!

I sit here at a bit of a loss of what to write today.  I don’t feel anything creatively stimulating my writing brain at all.  I think I will go wash my truck and do some errands in town…perhaps I will write more later on!  You can always check my video blogs on Youtube for more updates, I seem to do a video or two a week and have a bit less struggle posting those! Ha!  

B-F Question…Hardest Blog I EVER wrote!

This could be the most difficult blog I have ever undertaken!  I know, right up front, that I will probably get a lot of backlash for this. The topic is VERY difficult to write about without using stereotypes and words that we don’t necessarily “like” to use, but in order to write it I could not find a way NOT to resort to using the stereotypes.  I hope you will read first, and understand I am really trying to explain MY concept of answering this often-asked question. I am not intending to insult or disrespect ANYONE in any way, shape or form.  And I have tried to very delicately explain that this is just MY take on this topic, and is NOT the rule, may not be agreeable to anyone else. I am being very basic here, believe me we ALL KNOW there’s more to it than these basics, but for the sake of writing this piece I think I have to keep it to the old basic “stereotypes” for better understanding by a wider audience, please allow me a little lee-way here!  I would LOVE to see others write about this question and how they would answer it that is different from my thoughts below.  

The last post where i posed the question about Femme-Butch dynamics and the question about “why are Femme lesbians attracted to Butch lesbians, why not just date a man?” has spurred some very interesting and varying comments and input from my readers and Youtube audience. I love it! I like hear other peoples’ opinions and what they might say in return to the same question, opposed to what I would say myself.  It’s always great to get different perspectives and angles on any subject that interests me. 

I am going to boil down my answer to the question.  

My simple answer is “Well, they are both Lesbians, and lesbians are women who are attracted and have intimate, sexual relationships with other women.”

Now the particulars are in the pudding of the question.  The “asker” (if asked seriously by someone who truly doesn’t understand the Butch-Femme relationship dynamic and is truly curious for an answer. For sake of argument imagine someone close to you, who you love and respect asking you this question in all seriousness) sees two women, one very feminine, “girly” looking, and one very masculine, rougher, “boyish” looking.  He/she wonders “why would a woman would want to be with another woman who LOOKS like a man, why not just be with a man if that’s what you like”.  It may sound screwed up to us inside the equation; those in the LGBTQ community, and especially those of us who live the Butch-Femme dynamic daily.  But let’s just look at what the “asker” is seeing and why the question isn’t always so “stupid” when asked seriously and with respect.

The “asker” sees the Butch as more of a “man” than as the woman that she truly is. Maybe it is her clothing, perhaps haircut, rougher hands, short nails, and the way she is read as very male much of the time. Maybe it’s the way she talks, the way she carries herself, that Butch swagger, the tattoos, or the steel toe boots.  Whatever the “asker” sees that leads them to wonder what woman would be attracted to a woman of Butch identity,  

This can and does confuse those who are not part of the LGBTQ community, (and even some who ARE part of our community).  What the “asker” doesn’t see are her soft heart, her compassion, her personality, the fact that she IS a woman, has female body parts and has experienced life as a woman – a Butch woman.  

The Femme she is dating embodies all of the more “Feminine” aspects of being female. She presents to the world much the same way that most non-Butch women present, as purely woman.  She may look “straight” (The old, “oh you can’t be a lesbian, you are too pretty!” scenario), may wear make up and have a well coiffed hairdo, long painted nails and wear much more colorful and stylish clothing.  

Femmes love the masculine energy of a Butch woman.  They love that she IS a woman, and that she is rough and tumble on the outside, but has a heart of gold, is caring, compassionate, tender, vulnerable to only her, and understands her in ways no other does.

As A Butch myself, I love the Feminine energy of a Femme woman. I love that she likes to look her best, not just for me, but every day when she step out that door. I love that she cries on my shoulder during sappy movies, the way her soft, smooth hand fits so good inside of my rough one.  I love the smell of her hair, she chose that scented shampoo just because she knew I would like it – and I would TELL her so.  I love that she gets honery, stomps her heels and would fight off the whole population of the women’s rest room just so I could piss in peace.  Yes, I could go on, but it’s those opposing forces that drive us as Butches and Femmes into each other’s arms.  It’s my need for Femme energy and her need for my Butch energy in the end that brings us together as a unit.

So in the end my basic answer to a serious asker, is that Femmes are attracted to the attributes of masculinity that are embodied by a Butch WOMAN.  It’s the fact that she IS a woman that is appealing in her masculinity. It’s the way she has her own style and way of carrying masculinity that particular way that she does.  It’s about 2 women loving one another, and their preference is for the more opposite of what they are themselves, because that energy appeals to them; speaks to their soul.   

Side notes:  Of course we all know that in the end relationships come down to personality and how well the two participants get along.  Over our life times our tastes go through a range of changes, morphing into new phases and new likes/dislikes along the way.  My example is me….In my 20’s I was very much looking at the prettiest girls, the “10’s” as we used to call them. I was into how a woman looked, I was young, eager and maybe a bit shallow.  At 30 I matured. Who cares about a few extra pounds anyway?  I began to date women who made me laugh, who I enjoyed the company of and who were not just arm candy.  I fell in love with a wonderful, intelligent, witty, cute and sexy woman that I would not have given a second look to at 25!  She captured my heart and soul for 14 years…At 50 I am now interested in people; yes mostly very Femme women are my preference.  But they have to be intelligent, have a great sense of humor, be tolerant, caring, compassionate, and a dozen other things that I never thought about back in the days of hunting the 10’s.  I see the inside goods as well as the wrapping, and I am most interested in a combination of the two – a woman who likes to look her best, and is smart as a whip!  (she can even OWN a whip! lol).  I don’t think about sex first anymore, I think about what we each have to offer the other in ways of partnership, companionship and THEN sex!  🙂  

 

Femmes 

The Femme/Butch Question

So I get quite a few questions posed to me because of my Youtube channel and other internet venues I am involved in, one of the most common questions is “why do Femme lesbians want to date Butch lesbians? Why don’t they just date a man?” Of course this question is very irritating to me, and the explanation is so broad sometimes that it takes a hammer drill to get someone who doesn’t understand the dynamic to “get it”..

So when you are asked this question, or a question similarly worded regarding this, what do YOU say? I am about to make a new video addressing this, and am looking for some other input and perspectives on the topic.  I’m looking for more than the standard screw you if you don’t get it sort of response. I’d like to find a way to explain some of the dynamic and the attraction that would give a more serious answer to the question.  

Any input you have would be great!  I read every comment and response!  Thanks!

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