No, you're fine, I am just trying to think about it all and post clearly and it's so stinkn' hard online! You kinda have to read into to some things so it is probably my own spin on things.

I dont really know where I stand. My brother has told me countless times that im butch. and i do wear masculine clothing and have other traits associated with being butch.

But when i look into the mirror , i dont feel "butch" , I dont feel anything. not femme or butch. I simply exist.
I dont feel very feminine or masculine at all. But sometimes the balance i seem to have shifts one way or the other and then i return to the middle. and i tend to be extremely flexible when it comes to a partner. if she is more masculine iam usually more submissive unless she is. and if shes femme I can be her gentleman . I comfortably shift according to the needs or vibes she gives off , but its not something i do at will , it just kinda happens naturally by itself.

Mormegil, I understand how you feel. When I was younger I felt that way although I always liked more femme women (even if they didn't traditionally present that way). As I get older I am taking on a more butch sense, however in truth I feel a lot like you most of the time...more butch (and in behavior and mental thoughts definitely) soft, athletic butch in presentation but find clothes hard to buy because a lot of time with fashion I am in the middle...mind more metrosexual...body not exactly there these day.

I am just me and each day I feel more and more like that is ok. This week is graduation week at the college I teach at and under my robes (hot in the sun I will tell you that) I will be dressed professionally in linen, soft butch like but will probably wear some eye make up....etc. I think it is more to be comfortable with who you feel you are at the moment and not have to dress or act within the guidelines of any labels...that is my thought for the day...although like I said I ID as butch...even with man liner I feel more butch. when I am with a woman, more dominant and gentlemanly, etc.

If it was the 1950's, they would call you kiki since you could switch back and forth. Back then you had to choose butch or femme and if you could not slide yourself (or force yourself, I suspect), into one of those roles (or gender identity, depending upon how you saw it), you were called "kiki", with the expectation that you could go back and forth depending on who you partnered with.

Anyway, you don't have to be butch or femme. That is just one tiny slice of the lesbian/queer community. Seems to me it is a great way to fly...more choices! ha!

Remember, even if you don't identify as butch or femme (or trans, for that matter), you are welcome here.

P.S. No one is allowed to define you, but you. Especially not your brother!

I hope it's OK for me to comment in this thread even though I'm not butch. There's no need for you to make decisions about how to present. It's really, REALLY perfectly OK to just be who you are in the moment. No one else gets to tell you how that 'should' be, or to identify you as butch or femme. Simply existing is just fine. Most of the butch and femme women I know simply exist, which places them somewhere in a vast galaxy of possible presentations. A few of those women are extraordinarily masculine, and others are really traditionally feminine. Most of the others fall somewhere in between. They aren't posturing. It's just who they are. And that's great.

By the way, I understand that there's a societal assumption that masculine=dominant, and feminine=submissive. That assumption is problematic for many of us. You can be very masculine and not at all dominant, and vice versa.

Speaking for myself only,I would hate it if my lady told me she likes fucking straight men..like WTF!!
It would be I suppose a jealous thing for me,because I like to think I can fullfill my lady's needs in everyway possible.

This is the kicker..ready?

I do fuck men.I am a butch woman..I don't see anything wrong with me doing it.I mean i'm not involved with any bio-man at the moment.But it was not that long ago that I had an affair with a man,which ended as quickly as it started.She knows about these 'flings' and told me its just primal urges *snort*

If She had any primal urges like mine,i'd probably end the relationship.

Is it a double standard?

Affair to me means some romance and then wham bam thank you,i'm gone.

I don't think i'm cheating on her,she doesn't either.

I'd like to marry this woman some day,but I wouldn't blame her if she left me tomorrow.

Personally my opinion that's a double standard.

I would like to know what percent of butches do you think are attracted to femmes? And what percent to butches?
I've always been curious about this.

Deborah

Well.... I'm thinking your data is likely to be a bit squed since this is a Butch/Femme site. ;) Even so, there are some Butches on here who have said they like other Butches.

As for a % ... I couldn't say ... but... you can count me among the Femme fan gang. <~~ say that five times fast! :p

How's about a genderqueer leaning a little towards butch who is only attracted to butches and other genderqueers.

What's that do to the survey? lol

Again I'm asking.. please answer, I've been curious and would like to know.

What percent of butches do you think are attracted to femmes, and what percent are attracted to butches? To clarify, I'm not referring to this website, but the public in general.

Deborah

I dont think there has been a study on this. I know that each of us no matter how we ID is ever changing.

I wish you luck getting this answer

Think ice cream flavors
 

Law of attraction equals personal preference.I always liked women who were "girly" in appearance only.Women who are strong and smart.Women who aren't afraid to speak their mind.I'm very attracted to Femmes,generally,all women.They have the energy I crave.

My only experiences of butches is online B-F forums over the 15+ I have been on them. It is rare to see a butch interested another butch. “In real life”, I mainly see androgynous lesbians/soft butches, and they are interested in each other. I live in the mid atlantic/north east states.

Thanks Dapper.

Deborah

I dont think a study has been done on this.

But i havent bern on bfp long enough to really think about the percentages.

I don't know, I've lived in a few different countries and several citites... and the places that had dyke bars and genderqueer pubs/night clubs...

I'd say most butches had flexibility. Kinda like most people. Most butches liked tomboy femmes, some practical femmes, androgynous types, other butches of various types.
Most butches I knew, hung out with, got with, even married, had *one* butch-butch relationship in their past at the very least.

It's rare I know butches who *strictly* absolutely no exception whatsoever, EVER, see femmes. Most have shagged a butch or an androgynous dyke or had relationships with them, either when there are no femmes around, and they can't deal with screwing married straight women anymore, OR they meet an androgynous/butch dyke with "feminine" traits they recognise as attractive and they have an epiphany about relationships.

I'd say butch-femme -strictly, no exception- is not common.

that's not what people will tell you on some message boards of FB groups ;) but I also know what people say amongst other butches and in front of femmes, and where they have actually shagged is another matter.

people have standard deviation lengths that they will allow away from core attractions. It's a matter of how wide those standard deviations are, and how many someone finds acceptable (how fluid someone is in attraction).

I doubt that anyone would be willing or able to give you a number. It varies wildly from region to region. For instance, I've met a relatively large number of butch women who partner with other butches in the Bay Area of the US, and similarly found that there are plenty of regions in the US and Canada where there just aren't very many butches of any type. At all. I really have trouble figuring that one out. Then there's the problem of self identification varying from place to place and generation to generation. In some places the women who might identify as butch don't seem at all butch to me because I'm accustomed to a specific style of presentation, and those self identified butches would never ping my radar. And then I meet younger people who I would most certainly call butch, but they would never call themselves that. They identify as genderqueer, stud, ag, MOC, or anything else as long as it's not butch. So they may look like butches partnering with other butches, but that's far from how they would categorize themselves.

I'm sorry to tell you that your question doesn't have an answer.

Exactly. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Everything you listed.

In regards to what imperfect cupcake said about people (in this case butches), not being honest and having dates or slept with other butches, that is something that I have never considered. I think it is pretty ridiculous to not be upfront about that. I have never slept with a butch, but who the heck cares? I guess I get it though, people are so worried about what others think. Is it like a person is a "gold star butch" to have never slept with anyone but a femme? :sunglass: :rolleyes:

I don't think I've ever known a butch who has slept with *only* self identified femmes.
there are
straight women
feminine androgynous dykes/just me lesbians
men
genderqueers of all kinds
various kinds of butches
lipstick lesbians
etc etc

I think it would be very, very rare for someone to have only had sex from puberty till now with only self IDing femmes.

I know you weren't directing this at me, but my post saying that I have never slept with a butch may have prompted your thoughts. I said that because you said you didn't think there was anyone who had not had sex with a butch at some point. I really haven't. Whether they identified as butch, or just looked masculine, I really haven't slept with any masculine presenting females, nor any females who had "masculine energy". Just like people who haven't had sex with someone of the same sex or with someone of the opposite sex, I have personally not had sex with someone who presents/has the energy of a butch/masculine female.

I have slept with two "straight women", but didn't have relationships with them.

My preference is to date/partner with queer femmes. I don't believe I would partner with a "straight woman". Even though I have medically and socially transitioned to "male", I am still queer and a woman who has only ever lived as "straight" and has only ever "lived" in the mainstream, heterosexual community just would not suit me. They wouldn't "get me".

But, like Cheryl said there are a lot of people who "ping" as butch (or femme) to us that don't identify that way.

I've never slept with another butch or a trans person. Always been femmes.

Nowadays I am not opposed to sleeping with a butch or trans person, I don't discriminate.

Is this because your attractions changed (you didn't use to be attracted to butch of trans people), and you now are? Or were you just worried what people would think, so you always stuck with people who identified as femme

Just worried about what others would think. Nowadays i dont care lol im getting older and too tired of nonsense to worry about what others think these days.

Cannot recall, in the 50 years since puberty, that there is a sex or gender that I haven't slept with.
Butches of multiple sorts
Femmes of various types
Straight womyn and men
Bisexual womyn and men
Genderqueer people of various genders
Trans men (pre and post-op)
Trans womyn (pre and post-op)

Did I miss anyone? Spent most of my life quite sexually active as you can see.

Nor have I. And, while perhaps not every woman I've been with self identified as Femme, I suspect that's at least in part owing to a lack of vernacular. That essence has always been there. It is that exquisite energy that somehow manages to be intangible and palpable at once. I am every ounce the moth willing to be singed by that flame. Long before I had the language for it, I knew who my counterpart had to be. I'd go so far as to say it's not at all a choice for me. Air, water, light, Femme; all elements crucial in the development of my best self.

I don't feel as though I was ever drawn to being butch because I was never on the outside of it. As others have mentioned, I know beyond doubt that I burst into the world this way. When I was younger, when I had long hair, for example, I know my presentation might have not screamed butch, but my core has never changed and these days my external and internal are more aligned. I've never given much thought to defining butch. I guess I simply prefer to live it.

My impression is that in the SF Bay area, more butches and transmen are into other masculine folk, including cis men, than into femmes or andogynous folk.

Dapper, from what you are telling me, you have only partnered with self identifying femmes from the age you were first partnering with people.
Not feminine androgynous lesbians who "ping" femme to you and your concept of femme, but actual self identifying femmes.

this is kind of what I am trying to say. Not every feminine accented dyke is a femme, not every slightly masculine lesbian is a butch - this is *WHY* I personally have slept and partnered with more than just butches, because some of my masculine flavoured parters don't ID as butch.

And this is also why many butches also sleep with more than just self-identifying femmes. There are feminine presentations personalities in outwardly gender neutral, tomboyish, or only slightly feminine that "ping" attractions in the "right" way, despite not having a self proclaimed femme ID.

So when someone who is I dunno, my age-ish, and says "I've only dated femmes" I want to know if they mean "I've only dated/partnered with feminine presenting dykes that I considered to be femmes even though the didn't use the ID and we were both really young at the time anyway."

or what. I am sure there are rare instances of someone 50-60 years old only dating and partnering with self identified femmes since they were 15, when they were first sexually active, cause some self ID'd femme found them and educated them about it all in the back of a car or something... but I tend to think most butches when they say stuff like that are either fudging the info a bit slightly, *or* they mean feminine presenting lesbians
and not actually
self identifying femmes.

And we all know how much femmes hated being told they were the same as lipstick lezzos back in the late 90s on the dash site, eh?

*taps finger on side of nose*

ok, just steppin out of thread, it is in the butch zone. Sorry.

Cupcake?
 

As a point of clarification, what would be the difference between a "femme" and a "lipstick lezzie?" Back in the 90s, in my circle, the terms were used interchangeably.

I always thought they were one in the same, nowadays there are way too many new labels, etc for me to even keep up with.

I feel odd doing this in the Butch Zone, but here I go-

For a person who identifies as Femme, it's often a noun. A Femme, not (adjective) feminine, femmish, girly etc. Femme is a specific, often complicated, identity. It may not even involve wearing lipstick. I don't think anyone ever adopted 'lipstick lesbian' as a core identity the way we do when we call ourselves 'Femme'. There is also the curious fact that, as Gemme pointed out, some femme women who partner with butch women don't consider themselves lesbians, which means the term 'lipstick lesbian' isn't relevant to them. Also, 'lipstick lesbian' is really dated, and no longer used very often.

Ive only heard lipstick lesbian like a dozen times since ive been out.

I'm serious as a heart attack when I say you should consider writing a book!