I still don't know if this thread is for femmes only, so pardon me if I am out of line

I just find this interesting. Are you saying butches or men are NOT as hypervigilant and protective? I may have missed something, and I totally own that...I'm out of town and reading on my phone.

Here's why I ask...btw, I'm not calling you out...I'm asking seriously...so, here's why I ask.

Mahhh Woman notices looks/stares/whatnot from people that I never even see. She overhears comments and all sorts of shit I have become completely oblivious to over the years. I've heard other butches say the same thing about their partners. I *think* that because I have lived with the stares/comments for so long (as opposed to Mahhh Woman) I just don't notice them anymore (usually).

But one place I *have* noticed a difference between ALL of the femmes/women I've dated (when it comes to hypervigilance/protectionism) is I am very aware of my and Mahhh Woman's (what I call) 'bubble'. I may not notice a stare from 'over there', but you can bet, I know when someone gets in my/our/her bubble, and there will be some sort of measure taken to resolve the situation. Like even if I'm across a room or something, I wkill *know* if someone's in Mahhh Woman's bubble and such. I'm really not explaining this well, but...I have talked to other butches about this, and they *know* what I'm talking about...but when I've talked to femmes about it, they have no clue.

So, I'm truly curious...again not 'calling you out' or anything like that


Dylan

I am NOT saying that butches and/or men are not as hypervigilante and protective. At all. I might venture to say that you all are a tad bit desensitized after years of being hypersensitized though.

Hah. See above.

No I *think* I get what you are saying Dylan and don't think you are calling me out. Let me see if I am reading you right.

You are going to get protective and resolve the situation if you sense danger in you and your womans *bubble* (or personal space so to speak). You are not oblivious to perceived or real threats at all.

Your woman on the other hand might have a larger bubble? Meaning that a look from that cowboy way way over there is going to trigger her spidey senses and her fight or flight mechanisms whereas it's become so second nature to you that it probably doesn't even register until the offender gets within a certain radius?

SuperFemme said: I am having a completely different read on this thread. I am not at all reading it as Femmes having to be responsible for how butches and trans folks get along. I am reading it as Femmes being a part of the equation though. Neither of us exist in a vacuum. Some Femmes perpetuate the chasm between Butches and Trans Folks. Some Femmes are Butch Avengers and/or Trans Avengers...always ready to leap from a tall building to speak for a Butch or Trans person. To nurture. To save.

And I agree! This is what comes to mind when I read through the posts to this thread thus far. And honestly, right this minute it's more interesting to me to hear from other femmes here how we alienate each other (other femmes) when one femme puts down the protector sword while another picks it up and actually uses it to poke the other femme in the proverbial eye!

On the other site, a femme started a thread asking for tips and help to prepare for her first dildo experience with a butch. We were happily chatting along when a butch appeared and started making little jokes and sexual innuendo. And I called hym out on it and asked that hy respect the thread, read if hy must, but not post.

Immediately, two other femmes began to describe how the butch that had posted was one of the nicest people on the thread and blah, blah. Avenge the feelings of the butch! Honestly, I was floored that femmes would be willing to sacrifice their sisters to protect a butch's feelings in that type of circumstance.

Interested in others thoughts on that.

I am glad I was not there to witness (read: get banned) this.

It is a shame that everyone is reduced to sex acts while waiting for a butch or trans guy to show up isn't it?

Conversely, I understand that somebody thought that they were joining in on the spirit of the thread, but it IS disheartening.

Thanks and for your note. It would have been fantastic to have the support (not a one of the folks stood up to it with the exception of me...known to push back here for sure).
The title of the thread was directed to Femmes only to assist on the subject, but yes it seems that we femmes most often want to discuss sex acts amongst ourselves and then become quite chatty on a variety of topics once the butches and trans men show up.
Just to say a little more about my experience there (can you tell that it still pisses me off?)
It would have been totally cool with me if the femmes that jumped down my throat would have instead asked the OP if she thought it was ok for butches to join in the discussion, but instead they chose to attack me for questioning the appearance of a butch in a thread that was directed toward femmes.
I went back to the thread just to see how it was going a few days later (read but not post) and all sorts of butches had joined into the fun...mostly describing what femmes should do to make ourselves more comfortable with an early dildo experience.
Honestly, the whole thing was disgusting.

I can’t say that I’ve ever personally witnessed a global (for lack of a better word) insertion of deliberate discord among butches/transguys by femmes or feminine women. What I have witnessed is a kind of dissension taking place amongst butches and transguys surrounding the circumstance at the center of which was a femme. I do not believe the femme was the problem so much as the underlying competition. And I think that competition, being what it is, is a natural impulse centered in our evolutionary instincts. Certainly the conditions of patriarchy make our competitive behaviors quite vicious and self-defeating at times, but as I’ve argued before (to crickets, but wth) patriarchy may well be a condition of the evolutionary impulse.

I’ll provide an example: For me, to use the wrong gender reference for someone is an act of aggression and I will not do it, regardless of my personal feelings about the individual in question. I’m not saying I’ve never done it, but in the years since I started dumping out the knapsack and looking the contents over, I simply refrain. Still, and in spite of the ardent activists I’ve known, I have repeatedly witnessed certain butches/transguys utilize incorrect gender references out of cruelty and in times of frustration.

Back to competition: in spite of the fact that we’re predominantly queer and our partnerings are unlikely to affect population rates toward the surplus, our survival instinct compels us to seek a mate. In every species, this process is the underlying play of its adult groups. And through this process, competition is born. In fact, it’s necessary. We might have the iPhone 4.0 and quantum computing and Bill Maher and personal politics and Julie Marie Wade but we are stupid to think that 2.5 million years of evolution* doesn’t daily inform our interactions with one another (even when we think we’re being smooth). Now I think that for the most part, our evolution has moved away from the domain of the body and into the domain of the brain (at least I’m hopeful), and so maybe it’s true that our choices affect our future. Like, if you refuse to participate in the personal shit storm, you’re doing your own small part to evolve the race.

*just since Homo

PrettyWoman? I am sorry that you had that experience. I have no idea how a butch and speak to a Femme strapping for the first time. Rather, I have no idea how ANYONE can speak to it. It is such a vastly personal experience.

Maybe we should start a thread here in the Femme Zone about it and see what happens? I would hope it could be a different experience?

e are you saying butches and transguys are the ones perpetuating this issue?

I am getting caught up with the word competition...

<scratching head like a monkey>

I am a lil confused

Actually, yes. Except not consciously, which is important to remember. It occurs in the same way that a good deal of the tension among feminine women (like-among-like) is about underlying competition. It's a theory of evolution, anyway.

And again, it's exacerbated by the conditions of patriarchy, which are quite negative (obviously) and not conducive to the more positive features of informal in-group dynamics (team building, support systems, community-building, etc.).

ETA: Obviously, the same tensions occur among populations of queers for which gender variations/presentations are not so obvious, e.g. gay men and uniformly lesbian women. Competition among and within a group for which attraction and mating is also widely characterized is not as easily parsed.

I get it and I don't. Here is why.

I am not competitive when it comes to partnering up. I am good on my own, I don't have issues getting some or dating. So for *me* that head space does not exist.

I can see how it can play in to all this.

I also have to disagree that it is a butch transguy issue, and this is just my opinion.

We have the power to stop it if we want, or to watch the chest bumping when it comes down to us as future *mates*

So yeah I don't get it and I do cause I don't roll that way.

i think the fact that people hook up out of a community adds dynamics to it that can lead to drama, but that is not necessarily because of competition for resources. It's the added energy. Even the sweet and healthy posturing for attention can get to me at times, but that's my problem. This is a place where people hunt. i don't hunt here, or i haven't. But friends of mine do. And i think that's great. But, yes, it does change the nature of the exchanges.

In r/t butch-femme and (for me) lesbian communities, i see some of that. i have walked up to talk to a butch and seen the femme clutch her partner's arm. But that's not something that i think colors the entire community.

Is the sexual energy strong in our community? Yes. That's one thing i like about it. Does competition for mates cause a lot of the drama? i don't think so.

I am not sure what creates so much drama. Some of it here, i believe, is the medium -- the internet. Also we are a diverse group, and a few people want to feel more "at home" here or in r/t butch-femme than it turns out is always possible. i think that leads to frustrations and disappointments. And there is the normal drama of break-ups, etc.

Because i do not hunt here or even in r/t butch-femme (i hunt in the leather community), i do not encounter much femme jealousy. Some. It always shocks me, and there seems to be no way to defend yourself against it. But those folks are sad. They can't be having the best time. And most of the b-f community members i meet in the world are having a really good time. That's another thing i like about us.

Also, whatever behaviors people exhibit, unless they lead to greater reproductive success, they are not affecting evolution. It might affect how we all live our lives and what we teach our children -- our culture(s) -- but they are not affecting biological evolution.

Actually, it was your post, June, about not feeling responsible for the tensions among butches and transmen that inspired my thoughts. I don't feel responsible for those tensions either, and I don't think that any femme should, except when she has deliberately participated in a kind of negative in-group behavior that spurs intolerance and dissension. Perhaps we've all been party to this kind of thing at one time or another. Still, I think the basis - the foundational cause - for most intergroup tensions is competition and that it does have an evolutionary source. Like I mentioned, even though we are unlikely to add to the surplus in population, it is a benefit to our survival to mate, and ironically, to find and build community.

Snow, even while some of us overcome our more basic (and base) instincts (and I hear what you're saying definitely) some of the time, others have to consciously work to continue to do so (provided they ever select to do so). Not everyone has a competitive nature, sure, and not all people are given to behaving in ways that are derisive, but most people enact these behaviors at some point, and the larger question becomes not just one of the personality clash, or an inability to sort differences, but whether there is a deeper motivation for this need for establishing groups and even hierarchies.

I just happen to think there is.

It seems (and I could be misreading you) that your definition for evolution is that unless we are reproducing well (i.e., continuously and more?), we are not achieving the basis for a standard of evolution. My working definition is a framework that is larger than merely the propagation of the species -which I read only to be a continuation of the race - but an increase in the capacity of the human to function and to prosper, even if at reduced numbers. I'm unconcerned at this stage with biological evolution (although I think it would benefit the race to be done with wisdom teeth altogether). I agree that how we live our lives, what we teach our children, and questions of culture, are quite important to evolution.

Still, most of us scream and leap into a chair at the sight of a spider, and hardly ever at the sight of a moving automobile, which is much, much more likely to kill us. I hardly think we can intellectually do away with the evolutionary drives (like the competition for a mate) just because we find them unpalatable, or simply exhausting to think about.

Thank you June for going into more detail!!!

ms e I still do not agree and I am ok with it as I am sure you are. that for you it is not a femme influence that adds tar to the mixture. We can be catty, divisive, mean and dismissive towards each other especially when hurt or rejected. I know this is not exclusive to just femme, *I* chose to open it up for us femme's to talk about so that Atllasthome's thread could continue in friendship building.

Let's be honest, we have a tendency to disrupt threads with the whole in that sweet magnolia voice saying

"I love you guys and I think you are all great"

giggle wink wink tee hee

and yes I also know that butches do it to femme's but my intent was for us (femmes) to be transparent and open about our shit.

I thought the convo could be had maybe it can maybe we can't.

I hope I am making sense. I am not as evolved in language like most of you are and I thank you for your patience.

Gotcha!

So therefore what I have learned is this.

I should of worded it like Metropolis did...

I don't think it's all competition. I think sometimes its empathy. And then there are a lot of people who want to side with the "winning team" and those who will always side with the "underdog" on an issue. And then, as stated far earlier, I have put my foot in it most when I'm feeling protective of somebody else because I perceive them as being ganged up on. It's very hard for me not to jump in there and get my hands dirty if I think somebody else is being unnecessarily hurt, but it just backfires, you know?

It's hard for me not to "cheerlead" for the underdog because it's so second-nature to me, but I have to not take sides. Or to take the femme side if I'm gonna take sides.

And from the femme side, I really thought it was great what Pretty Woman said about the stuff femmes perpetuate on other femmes. I especially feel this happens during discussions about butches and/or transguys to the point where the femmes on both sides drown out the actual people a situation is affecting directly. (I am guilty of participating in this)

Sometimes it feels like the pronoun issue (for example) really pits femme against femme because femmes come in to protect whomever from the evils of wrong pronoun choice and it seems like we can't even hear each other about our own varying perspectives as femmes without seeking to attack other femmes that aren't on board with our viewpoints.

I read what you were saying here and immediately began to look for explanations in terms of the social sciences. Recently, in a tough conversation I was having with my best friend, she told me that I tend too often to intellectualize what isn't and asked me if this isn't a coping mechanism for something. (I've actually been accused of the intellectualizing thing a few times before, so I had to stop and consider her words seriously.) It may be that I'm distancing from emotions, but I know that I just happen to think in this way, so if you'll bear with me (or not):

Anyway, I'm rather a fan of the sciences, and the social sciences especially. I think that even if there is a reason for a behavior on an individual/personal level, there is a fairly large degree of possibility that it is correlating to another level of "cause." In other words, human action can be seen in quadrants of behavior from the independent, intentional level to the behavioral to the cultural and collective, and sometimes an action may unite on all levels, even while the individual conceives of themselves acting out of independent intention.

I guess if we're talking about what behaviors are counter productive, but which we see happening often, it's useful (to my thinking) to consider the root of *all* the reasons.

Hi Pretty Woman :rrose:

I was actually one of the femmes participating in that thread and remember that exchange well. For me, this is a classic example of how our different viewpoints impact what we read and how we read it.

While the butch's remarks were rather juvenile (and arguably insensitive), I certainly didn't read them as sexual in nature. If I remember it correctly, it was along the lines of "peeking in and just gonna sit quietly over here --->> ".

Your response to him read as incredibly harsh (to me). I remember thinking "oh good grief" when he posted....and "oh holy hell" when you did. To his credit, he immediately apologized. And no, I was not one of the femmes who posted to defend him, because I felt that he was perfectly capable of explaining, apologizing and exiting all on his own. When it all blew up, he apologized several times. To me, he made a mistake and he aplogized for it.

No, I don't think he needed femmes to defend him. But I also think it's possible that the harshness of your correction to him made some of those who care about him upset. He is a genuinely nice and caring person, and I think some of those who know that were offended.

I don't think that was a case of femmes attacking other femmes to defend a butch's feelings. I think that was a case of friends feeling like a friend had been unfairly browbeaten for an innocent mistake.

I agree with you though, that the thread quickly deteriorated after that. It was really a place for femmes to discuss a very sensitive and personal subject, and it turned into a mess.