Butch desire is to fem hunger what peanut butter is to jelly; what ying is to yang.
I recently read a really GREAT blog about “hunger”; specifically fem hunger. You can read it here, which is my previous cross post about this blog, and will connect you with this wonderful blogger. The writer is a fantastic femme, who writes with elegance and ease about this topic and many others concerning Butch-fem relationships and dynamics. As with anyone, I don’t always agree with her, but I have found that she quite often stimulates me to write more! I truly value her opinions and perspectives.
This article she wrote about fem hunger has made me think much about what it is that I, as a Butch who desires that fem hunger, feel and how I respond to that hunger.
Butch desire is the deep, almost primal, need a Butch feels when acknowledged by a femme. It’s the riveting eye contact that conveys the message that they want more; they want to take it all. Butch desire runs deep in the body, and is activated like an electrical current, making the heart race and the breath come in heavy sighs. It’s that desire to be wanted and needed exactly as I am – Butch and proud – not to be told to “tone it down” or hide in any way.
It’s the unending need to fix everything; to make everything good and right for her femme; to treat the femme like the queen of her world, as it should be. Then it’s the aching need to take what is hers; to conquer and devour every savory morsel of femininity exuded by her fem lover, and to do it with force and precision.
“I want you as a woman, not as a man; but I want you in the way you need to be, which may not be traditionally female, but which is the area you express as Butch…….I make it right to want me that hard. Butches have not been allowed to feel their own desire because that part of being Butch can be perceived by the straight world as male. I feel I get back my femaleness and give a different definition of femaleness to a Butch as a femme.”
Amber Hollibaugh, “What We’re Rollin’ Around In Bed With” My Dangerous Desires
Butch desire is the raging need that fills my mind with visions of her, spread before me quivering and waiting for my touch, sometimes gentle and sometimes rough and demanding. It’s the ache in my entire body that is only stopped by her moans, that deep connection we make in becoming whole together, mind, body and soul. It’s her unbridled hunger for being taken and my overwhelming desire to claim her as my own. Butch desire is all of those things, plus much more. From the way it makes me lick my lips in anticipation, to the guttural noises I make as I find my release with her body quaking under mine.
That hardness; the rigidity of our closely guarded emotions, that we keep locked up safe behind our walls of protection, is also our vulnerability. When a femme sees momentarily behind the wall that we build, it’s an intimate and very exposed feeling for a Butch. We do not show our vulnerabilities readily, nor often. Some say we are damaged goods; that our lack of visible emotion and response is from some trauma – or from our “wanting” to be male – nothing could be further from the truth for a truly authentic Butch. Femmes have a way of seeing through our thinner walls, and of reaching past those super-tender spots without threatening or damaging us. This serves to heighten our desire; to fan the flames of heat and passion.
Never have I desired to be “male” – although standing to pee is very appealing – it never came to me to transition to the male gender. Femmes get this. They don’t push us to change, but accept us for who we are and how we represent ourselves in the world. We are women who push the gender boundary and skew the binary; who look, feel and think a bit differently perhaps. There’s a thin line; a boundary of distinction, invisible to most and yet something that we are very keenly aware of as we move about our world.
Being a dominant Butch it’s often assumed that I take on a “male” role in any relationship. While this has some truth to it, it’s not really that cut and dried; every Butch owns her own butchness – and what that is and how it plays in her life, daily. Being Butch doesn’t stop when no one’s looking, it’s an authentic way of being in the universe. And it’s that combination of being female, yet very masculine that feels every so right to a Butch – and to her fem partner. It’s what gives me life and joy in being.
When I am with people from outside of the gay community I am more keenly aware of my differences with them. Whereas when I am with my counterparts I am much more relaxed and less guarded overall. The more “mainstream” lesbian community generally frowns on the Butch-fem dynamic, lifestyle and those who partake in it’s beauty. Sad for them in my opinion. Lesbians seem to have a real tendency to be judgmental of other lesbians – at least that has been my own observation. I see more lesbian on lesbian bashing than I care to see.
Personally, I don’t give much weight to their opinions, rude remarks, comments, or slurs of others – lesbian, straight, or whatever. That’s their business; their own frame of thinking, generally constructed from within their own culture, community and situation in life. People get hung up on what they do not understand; it frightens them, so they try to minimalize it however they can. I find this to be a real form of “internalized” homophobia. Preach about equality, but disrespect those who do the same things you do – just tweaked a bit. That does NOT make much sense. And perhaps me even saying this here doesn’t either, it’s MY own internalized phobia of occasionally worrying about what others may think. And there I will leave it.
~MB
MainelyButch: Private Label 
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