From: iw@Rational.COM (The_Virgin_Ho)
Subject: Femme/Butch in Bisexuality
Keywords: Femme Butch 
Organization: Marys World 
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:07:32 GMT

For me, part of being bisexual meant that I could never distinguish 
sexual attraction based on gender. This scared me because I felt as 
though I could be attracted to absolutely everybody in the world, 
and that somehow I did not have control over who I might be 
attracted to. Somehow I felt blasted open, lacking the boundaries 
you learn growing up as a heterosexual.

However recently I have begun to notice that I am actually attracted 
to a very distinctive identity - butch. Butch women and butch men. 
While I often think femme women and men are cute, even sexy 
looking, I don't actually lust after them.

Many people think that femme equates to feminine, to make-up, 
prettiness, passiveness, docileness, submissiveness and powerless
ness, adjectives used to describe women. Butch equates to mascu
line, to macho, assertiveness, power and dominance. 

These definitions have been based on examining femme/butch les
bian relationships in the light of heterosexual role models. To me 
femme and butch do not equate to feminine and masculine, nor are 
they gender or queer related. Straight men and women can be 
femme or butch. However the femme/butch dynamic really 
becomes noticeable in same sex relationships, where there are no 
differences based on gender. I prefer to define femme and butch 
along the following lines:

Femmes enjoy attention, like admiration, like to be on display and 
love their reflection in others eyes. Femmes like to feel sexy and 
draw attention to that part of themselves. Very importantly Femme 
has an erotic identity, femmes give pleasure by receiving pleasure, 
enjoying their lovers enjoyment of them. Essentially femmes make 
a gift of their pleasure but in a very active way.

Butches like to dress up, but it is in a very different way. They like 
to look sharp, but don't put themselves on display in the same way 
femmes do. They like to see themselves as being the ones in con
trol. Erotically, they get a lot of pleasure through giving pleasure, 
through seeing their effect on their partners. 

I do not believe that everyone is inherently femme or butch. Many 
people may never experience femme/butch but I know many people 
who do. Nor do I believe that people necessarily have a defined 
femme/butch identity during their lifetime - I would look upon it as 
a fluid spectrum like the Kinsey scale, where people may shift 
many points either way, depending on whom they are with, or 
where they are in their lives.

I also think that traditional male/female role models tend to hide 
inherent femmness or butchness. Traditionally straight women are 
expected to get femmed up, but many women do not necessarily 
feel comfortable doing this. Typically straight men who dress up 
are thought to be gay or at the very least sissy. Femme/butch 
becomes much more obvious in queer circles, where people are less 
confined by traditional role models and expectations.

I, for instance, am definitely a femme, by my own definition. How
ever if you think of femme in the traditional way you would proba
bly miss me - I am very assertive and empowered, all the same I am 
pretty well femme through and through. I have found it becomes 
much more apparent when I am with women, because I am more 
free to be my natural self. Around men I tend to deny my femme
ness, because in a patriarchal society it is usually associated with 
weakness and a lack of power. I am very definitely attracted to 
butch people, both butch women and butch men.
 
 So why I have told you all this? I would like to know if anybody out 
 there has thought about this in regard to themselves and their own 
 attractions. Do you maybe find butch women attractive and femme 
 men attractive? Or vice versa. Or do you find your own kind attrac
 tive, or the opposite. Does any of it even make any sense to you?

 Finally some real life examples - I was looking at MTV recently 
 and would have to say that examples of classic femmes are 
 Madonna and Prince. Michael Hutchence looks kind of femme to 
 me. KD Lang is definitely butch, so is Melissa Etheridge (despite 
 the fact that her record company has her in femme drag at the 
 moment). Obviously this is all pretty arbitrary - but I thought it 
 might help if I gave some real life examples, so that you could think 
 of it as separate from lesbian.


 Iseult.

 Phew - I have been wanting to start a thread on this for along time 
 but it is so hard to explain about femme/butch. And I hate the way 
 people look upon femme as being powerless, and on butch women 
 as just imitating men, because I believe there is a much more funda
 mental dynamic involved. 

 Neato Skeato - my spell checker liked femme but not butch.  It is a 
 good omen.
Newsgroups: soc.bi