When I posted my last entry, I worried that it might be behind the times.  Especially considering the number of queers who identify as neither butch nor femme (and those who eschew labels altogether), I was uncertain whether the post would ring true for people.  But wow.  Not only were my fears unfounded, but the number of negative messages I received on Facebook made it clear that this is still a big issue.  Whether they specifically identify as "butch" or not, two masculine-of-center women who date each other face serious challenges, even within their own communities.

In this post, I continue exploring butch-butch relationships, based on interviews of 15 self-identified butches--10 who are currently in a relationship with another butch, and five who are single and date butches.  I've decided to expand the butch-butch exposé into three parts rather than two.  This part tackles "balance" in a butch-butch relationship, as well as how butch-butch couples have been received by others.


A Different Kind of Balance

One of the most-written-about joys of butch-femme relationships is the inherent "balance"--psychic, physical, and otherwise.  Many of the butch-butch couples I interviewed also talked about balance, using words like "synergy," "camaraderie," and "equality."  Several respondents said that in butch-femme relationships, gender roles had been too present for them.  All respondents were quick to state their respect for butch-femme relationships (and understood that prescribed roles are not necessarily part of that equation).  Still, they saw butch-butch relationships as a kind of "tabula rasa," with no default (in their own minds, nor in others' perceptions) about who opens the door for whom.  "In our relationship, it's as if gender roles just completely don't exist, which I love," KT said.  Lisa echoed this, saying that she enjoyed the "fluidity" of her and her partners' roles.  Chelsie wrote, "The fem women I was with treated me more like their 'boyfriend' and resembled the dynamic of a straight couple."

Personally, while dating men and while dating femmes, I always felt like there were prescribed "typical" ways for us to act.  If my femme date brought me flowers (or if I bought my DXH flowers), it was as if were were "bucking" certain roles.  I don't like having roles to buck, even if they're only imposed by my own culturally-programmed brain. 

Nearly all of the butches I interviewed had previously dated femmes, and said dating butches felt "natural" or "was a relief."  K wrote, "The dynamic of my relationship with my butch is so different from any of my relationships with femmes (or men, before that). I feel like I have finally been allowed to take off…  any kind of costume.  There's no doubt that I'm butch, or that she is: even though we're not terribly attached to labels, we both agree that either of us prancing about in a dress or makeup would be Just Wrong."  She also said, "But the relaxed and accepting dynamic of our relationship allows me to be myself first and foremost, with costumes optional, whereas in masculine/feminine-roled relationships that I've been in, only certain things were allowed, and to venture beyond them might make somebody squeamish."

When it came to the essentials of love and communication, however, most respondents believe that butch-butch relationships are no different from any others.  Becca wrote, "[T]he dynamic of our relationship is basically very simple--we're head over heels ridiculous for each other, and I'm grateful for every single moment."  Jess shared a similar sentiment: "[T]he dynamic of our relationship is similar to any other relationship, whether it's femme/femme, butch/femme, or any straight couple. We love each other and have committed ourselves to a lifetime together. We argue with each other, we miss each other when we're apart, and we consult each other in any big or small decision we're making. We laugh, we cry and we care."

All of this made me wonder if butch-loving-butches experience a different kind of queer "sexual orientation" than femme-loving-butches.  What do you think, dear readers?


Friends Don't Care, But Strangers Stare

The dominant theme from my interviews was that close friends tend to be accepting of butch-butch relationships, but that strangers and acquaintances, whether straight or queer, tend to be weirded out.  There also seems to be an uncomfortable "invisibility" that butch-butch couples experience as couples.  I'll let these butches explain in their own words:

eL: "Most of my friends 'just don't get' butch...  I do feel like it's taboo.  …[W]hen my ex and I would go out dancing, when we weren't being seen as gay boys/bois, we were often assumed to be single (even though we were dancing together and were, in my opinion, pretty obviously TOGETHER).  We would regularly get hit on and then have to politely decline and, much to most folks' surprise, state that we were, in fact, a couple.  Also most femmes and some 'straight' women automatically assumed were were interested in them when we just weren't--we only had eyes for each other…  Not being seen as a couple was difficult."
 
K.D: "My best friend thinks its adorable, [and]others don't have much to say.  I think some people get confused because they are used to the butch/femme dichotomy.  I think a lot of people find it unusual but I don't think many would say its taboo, just perhaps confusing."

Donnie: "My close friends were ok with it, others thought it was kind of odd to be butch on butch… and teased us about who opens whose door and who does who in bed."

Stacy: "My friends didn't say much, but I heard later that they thought it was a bit weird.  I find a lot of things feel weird in the lesbo world--the B/B thing was just another one."

Becca: "[M]y friends are a broad mix of queers who don't really seem to judge other people's situations, and my straight friends and family don't know that it's different from anything.  They just see two queers and it makes sense to them.  I don't feel like it's unusual/weird/taboo for me, but I do feel extra gay sometimes.  I feel like we'e super visible as queers, but not always super visible as a couple." 

Anon: "Some friends think it's weird, especially the butches in butch-femme couples.  It's like being gay within the gay community.  One butch friend of mine said she thought it was 'gross.'  I feel like heterosexuals understand butch-femme better than butch-butch.  Maybe the butch-femme thing is more recognizable to heterosexuals as what they're used to."

_Lisa: "It feels a little taboo sometimes. But it seems to throw off straight people more than other lesbians. Straight people still seem to be stuck in butch/femme roles, and get confused if we don't fit into those stereotypes."

Jennie: "None of my friends ever questioned the butch/butch thing. My friends were just excited to see me happy. I don't find it unusual. In fact, I enjoy it more than I realized I could!"

AJ: "All my friends were great and they love Jo so there was no problem there.  Sometimes when you are out in public and we are together you get weird looks…  You do hear… complaints of femmes that it is not fair that you get all the butch girls when they want one!"


So What's At the Heart of the Butch/Butch "Taboo?"

This all made me wonder...  if Portia had short hair and had worn a tux, would people have been quite so stoked about Ellen and Portia's wedding?  Would "Ellen Show" viewers still have talked about how "cute" the wedding was?  And if not, would this be due to the fact that butch + butch is taboo, or that same + same is taboo, or to the fact that butch women aren't seen as conventionally attractive?

Stay tuned.  Next entry will be a wrap-up on butch-butch relationships, and I'll finally tackle butch-butch in the bedroom...

A huge thank you to the wonderful butches who let me interview them: AJ and Jo, K (aka Chopper) and Z (aka Zed), eL, LG and KT, Donnie, Becca and K.D., Jess and Beth, O, Stacy, Chelsie, Lisa and Jennie, and a handful of others who preferred to remain anonymous. 

_Gay Within the Gay Community

When I first came out, I quickly understood two things: (1) I was butch; (2) I was interested in butch women.  It took me a few months to realize that the co-occurrence of these two things was a bit unusual.  I read dozens of online profiles in which devastatingly attractive butches proclaimed their desire to find a femme who could "balance" them. 

I hope my loyal readers will forgive me for this, but back then, I really didn't understand butch-femme relationships.  Wasn't a big perk of being a lesbian to get away from gender roles? Why would anyone want a relationship that replicated heterosexuality?  Of course, this is silly; butch-femme relationships aren't "replicating" heterosexuality any more than my butch DGF and I are "replicating" a homosexual male relationship.  When two phenomena are similar, sloppy thinking can lead to the conclusion that the less culturally privileged one is imitating the other.  I was engaged in sloppy thinking.

Anyway, the lack of butch-loving butches to date led me to give femmes a whirl.  But dating femmes felt a lot like dating men: it was something I was supposed to like, but it felt strange and unnatural.  It just wasn't me.  (The main upside to dating femmes seemed to be that it was easier to find my clothes on the floor next to theirs!)

So I resigned myself to the fact that I was the rare butch who is into other butchy/boi/andro types.  I found plenty of butch-femme socials and butch-femme mixers, but no butch-butch ones.  And there were all kinds of informal social sanctions for cruising other butches.  It was a little like being gay within the gay community.  This is reinforced by the fact that some people call butch-loving-butches "fag butches."


Butch-Butch Interviews

I've had several readers ask about butch-butch relationships (whether they want to be in one or not).  Since this is an object of such intense curiosity, I thought I'd give it some attention.  I interviewed 10 butches who are currently in a relationship with another butch, and another five who are single and looking to date other butches.


Opposites Don't Always Attract: How Butch-Butch Couples Meet

Almost universally, the butches I interviewed said that it's difficult to find butchy types who want to date other butchy types.  In fact, one of them (who lives in New York City) called it a "dating nightmare."  Even butches who are open to dating other butches don't always end up doing so, since it's easier to find femme dates.  Dating online widens your dating pool, and the majority of my respondents met their partners this way.  The handful of butch-butch couples who met in person did so at a bar, a dinner, or through a mutual friend.  Personally, I met my DGF through one of those dorky "come meet other lesbians" dinners (and I was only there because my DXH forced me to go). 

When two butches are attracted to each other, they can be terribly shy about making the first move, and may assume that there's no mutual attraction.  To carry the gay male metaphor further: if a straight guy hits on a lesbian and gets rejected, he doesn't lose face.  It's just a bummer.  But if a gay guy hits on a straight guy and gets rejected, there's more at stake.  The straight guy might interpret it as a threat to his masculinity.  This puts the gay guy in a more vulnerable position than the straight guy.  Same deal with butches.  Hit on a butch who is only into femmes, and you may find yourself subject to a negative rebuff (which, in turn, can wound your own butch pride).  Chelsie writes, "[Telling] my butch friends what I'm attracted to was a mini version of coming out of the closet." 

Added to this is the machismo two butches can exude when they meet each other.  Sometimes they puff out their chests and shake hands as if to say, "Yeah, we're both women who are into woman, but to each other we're bros, not sex objects."  As K told me, "if [a butch] has got her 'cool suit' on, as so many butches do, it can be impossible to read her."  Stacy described something similar: "There is something that I call a 'Butch Barrier' (and no, it's not a dental dam) because it's hard to get close to other butches...  I think it makes dating even harder.  Plus some butches are totally turned off by the thought of another butch."

_Advice for Single Butch-Loving Butches

AJ and Jo: "Just because someone looks all butch and uber tough doesn't mean they always have the confidence and personality to match...  Go up and introduce yourself and talk and listen, see where it goes from there." 

K: "[S]tart by talking to them as friends... There are not a lot of constructs of behaviors for butches interested in butches, because... it's pretty rare and unexplored (in available writings, at least -- I have no doubt that the butch-loving butches have been finding each other since way before Stonewall).

Jess: "The idea of butch/butch is not always accepted in our community, but don't give up... When I didn't think I was going to find someone, Beth came into my life and changed it forever."

Z: "To another butch/boi who wants to date another butch/boi but is having trouble finding dates, I say, don't give up. First you gotta put out to the universe what you are looking for... Put an ad on Craigslist, be specific... Try some online forums/bulletin boards, go to a gay bookstore and hang out getting to know people. Someone will know someone who is single and looking to date. Put the word out."

__eL: "[B]e social, friendly, talk to people that you find attractive... and if you do go out, please dance!  A butch dancing is a sexy thing - don't be so shy!"

LG: "Try dating older butches."

K: "If she grins at you nonstop at [a] party... that is a promising signal to go ahead and flirt with her...  think of this uncharted territory as Your Territory: One of the few areas of your life that can be untainted by stereotypes, assumptions, and stupid old American Puritanism."

KT: "Sometimes a butch thinks she isn't attracted to other butches, but then she meets you and whammo.  Also sometimes people are more attracted to mannerisms than physical appearance.  I dress more masculine than my partner but am more effeminate in my gestures.  If I was gruff or traditionally masculine, she probably wouldn't have been interested in me."

Donnie: "Keep trying, it's out there, you just have to look harder.  There are online butch/butch dating sites such as www.butchboi.com."

K.D: "Don't be afraid to let your feelings be known. I feel like there are more butches that want to date butches out there but because of societal norms many are afraid to say it.  Speak up, perhaps another butch has a crush on you but they think you only dates femmes so they are being reserved."

Becca: "I have known people who have had good luck finding this kind of thing online, but that has never been the case for me.  I usually wind up dating butches who I am friends with first."

O: "In my experience butches are never as hard and tough as you might think they would be...everybody just wants to be loved, so dont be shy, never know if you don't try."


Hope you're enjoying this little butch-butch exposé.  Tomorrow: Butch-butch relationships, part II.  Who wears the...  pants?  And more!

A huge thank you to the wonderful butches who let me interview them: AJ and Jo, K (aka Chopper) and Z (aka Zed), eL, LG and KT, Donnie, Becca and K.D., Jess and Beth, O, Stacy, Chelsie, Lisa and Jennie, and a handful of others who preferred to remain anonymous. 

_Here are three excerpts from reader emails and comments this month:

"I wish I was born a man, but I don't want to be trans.  What gives?"
"I don't want to be a guy, I am a woman, but I want top surgery, or at least smaller breasts.  I guess I might be genderqueer?"
"I don't get why all butch lesbians aren't trans.  Why not go all the way?"

One underlying commonality is that all three readers are trying to reconcile a female body with the desire to have "masculine" attributes.  They all seem to assume that if a ciswoman (someone who was born biologically female and identifies as female) wants attributes that we associate with maleness, she secretly, somewhere deep down, wants to be a man.  Or at least, they suggest that being a woman with certain male attributes undercuts a self-identification as female.

As a butch who has great respect for trans men but no desire to be one, I have a few answers to the "why aren't all butches trans" question.

1. First, gender is culturally imposed.  The idea that men should wear ties and women should wear dresses is not biologically embedded in our brains.  If a woman wants to sample/use/enjoy "male" culture, why would this necessarily indicate that she would also want facial hair and a penis?  To me, the two feel totally separate.
2. "Genderqueer" means different things to different people.  But I most often hear it defined as existing outside the gender binary--someone who sees themselves as neither male, nor female.
3. "Genderqueer" is a fashionable thing to be right now.  But you need not identify as genderqueer just because you are a butchy dyke, or a cross-dressing man, or a transwoman, or anything else.  You can be a man in a dress who completely identifies as a man, or a woman in a tie who completely identifies as a woman.  Personally, I am not genderqueer.  I look rather butch/androgynous, but I completely identify as female.  Just because a woman has short hair, or binds her breasts, or wears a tie, does not mean she is automatically "genderqueer." 
   
4. There is a big difference between being a woman in "men's" clothing and being a man in "men's" clothing.  I feel at home thinking of myself as the former, but not as the latter.  I want a cufflinks and big watch and boots and a button-up shirt.  But I don't want the chest hair or Adam's apple or anything else that supposedly "goes with" being male.  Assuming that a butch "really" wants to be a man embraces the false idea that gender and sex are one and the same--that a person's body and mannerisms and shoe choices should all align. 
   
5. If you are a woman-identified butch lesbian, becoming a trans man is not "going all the way."  Being butch does not set you on some path to "full" masculinity.  A butch woman's masculinity is not different in degree from that of a butch man or FTM; it is different in kind.
   

At the risk of sounding trite ("we're-all-beautiful-and-unique-and-special-like-freaking-snowflakes-kum-bah-yah"), I hope you'll embrace your woman-ness or man-ness or genderqueer-ness or whatever-you-are-ness without regard to culturally imposed ideas of what a man or a woman is.  That doesn't just include mainstream culture, but queer culture as well: our music, magazines, friends, and community.  Question people who think inside the box.  But also question those who claim to think outside it.  Because in the end, your wild and precious identity* is yours alone.


* Apologies to Mary Oliver

     

GAYLIENATION (gay-lee-un-nay-shun) noun 

1. The sense of being an outlier as a result of one's sexual orientation <panic frequently accompanies the gaylienation I feel upon being asked to attend a bridal shower> 
   
2. The act of being separated from a group, often forcibly, due to one's sexual orientation <elementary school amounts to several years of galienation, followed by algebra>

Source: My DXH's linguistic imagination.

_If you're interested in sporting cufflinks, but aren't even sure where to start (and maybe don't even have more than 1-2 French cuff shirts yet), you're in luck--I have a whole new section of the Butch Store devoted to cufflinks.  I recommend starting with three pairs, in three separate categories:

1. Basic silver or gold.  These may not be exciting, but they're highly functional and work for any occasion.  They can have a geometric design (like the ones in the photo at right), but shouldn't incorporate other colors.   If you can't decide between gold and silver, just choose whichever you wear most often, since you'll want to match your cufflinks to the metal of your earrings, watch, and/or belt buckle.

2. Understated but distinctive.  This is my personal favorite category of cufflink.  It works for all but the most formal (think: tux) occasions, and expresses your style.  Choose something with just one main accent color.  I love these purple ones (pictured left), as well as these  banded African jade ones by

 Ike Behar (pictured right).  You can even find good-looking cufflinks that incorporate leather.  This category of cufflink should be matched to whatever shirt you're wearing.  The purple ones above would look great with grey, white, black, purple, or lavender, but not with, say, orange or red.  They're fine for the office, a date, clubbing, or dinner out.

3. Novelty cufflinks.  By "novelty," I don't mean cufflinks that turn into yo-yos or feature blinking lights.  I just mean cufflinks that are wacky and different enough that you probably wouldn't wear them on a first date.  Take, for instance, these Ed Hardy koi fish cufflinks (pictured left), which I do not own and happen to 

love.  Or what about the ones to the right, which are not only versatile cufflinks, but double as working levels.   Just in case you need to like, um, put up a shelf or something while you're wearing French cuffs (hey, it could totally happen).  Some cufflinks are absolute works of art.  Others allow you to proclaim your support for gay marriage, or double as 4G USB drives.  Whatever the case, these novelty cufflinks should only be worn out dancing, or to not-that-fancy restaurants, or to work on a day that you're not meeting with a client or a CEO or anything.

I hope you'll think about adding some cufflinks to your butch jewelry collection.  I'm curious: how many of you are cufflink veterans?  Take the poll below!