Butch/Femme Dynamic vs "Masculinity" and "Femininity"

[Cin]

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

That's not the way I see it. When I see people talk about how femmes queer femininity/butches queer masculinity, I still see an underlying comparison or presupposition of an "original"...that there is some kind of original masculine/feminine form to be queered to begin with. If there wasn't, then we wouldn't be queering it. The very fact that it is queered means that there is a form that is unqueered, and that fact that one is queered and the other unqueered suggests original vs. queered.

But you said -

I also fully understand where this becomes problematic for myself (and perhaps for some others). As I mentioned before, what then defines my attraction to femmes if not femininity, and a femme's attraction to butches if not masculinity? I guess I'm coming to closer to feeling like the answer to that, for me, is how each one actually defies the socially accepted categories. Perhaps (speaking for myself only of course) it's that complete denial of socially accepted masculinity/femininity coupled with individual physical characteristics (that neither define butch or femme) one just happens to find attractive. All that can just be "femme" or "butch," no?

So I said:
Originally Posted by Miss Tick
Is that not the same as masculinity queered and femininity queered? Is that not what people mean when they speak of how hot they think masculinity in a female body is? Or how femmes queer femininity and find it so much more comfortable when it is in a queer context rather than in a heterosexual one?

So what you mean is that defying the socially accepted categories of masculinity and femininity does not mean queering them but instead it means denying the existence of masculine and feminine at all in any content or context in queer identity or vocabulary? Have I got it yet?

Hmm...I don't think so. Even on this forum we've seen members pop up who talk about how they've felt that butch fits them, but that they have these characteristics and these characteristics that doesn't make them feel traditionally butch. I think it was controlled, but I think the community is making some effort to undo that. At least on an individual to individual basis (versus talking about generalizations).

I do see effort but I don't see this becoming a wide spread belief. There still is quite a hierarchy. But I might be limited in my scope.

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

So what you mean is that defying the socially accepted categories of masculinity and femininity does not mean queering them but instead it means denying the existence of masculine and feminine at all in any content or context in queer identity or vocabulary? Have I got it yet?

That's the thing, is that it really isn't an either/or answer. And I'm starting to think that that might be what's happening in how my posts are being read. When I'm trying to work through my own thought process I structure it in my head as going through every argument that I can think of that strengthens or weakens either side of the argument. In this case I'm finding a weakness in certain arguments surrounding butch and femme identity, and the butch/femme dynamic...namely the weight that's placed on the use of masculine and feminine as defining factors. So often I'm considering both sides of the argument and seeing merits in both.

So that means that when I'm looking at the question you posed above, I'm thinking something to the effect of: Yes, on the one hand "queering" masculinity and femininity serves an important purpose. Greater heteronormative western society still sees masculinity and femininity as very rigid and defined according to interests/characteristics and according to assigned sex at birth. Those categories need to be broken, and one way to do that is to make them limitless, and to push society to perceive them as limitless and encompassing of anyone who wishes to adopt them.

Similarly, it can be important to possess masculinity and femininity as queer. This allows us to see that masculinity and femininity in the current form that we understand them in the western world is derived from a certain period in Greco-Roman history, which was slightly altered but largely maintained throughout the subsequent periods in history. It allows us to insert ourselves into a history that denied or looked down upon those who did not properly fit these categories. It does not insert modern queers into that history, but it takes into account that deviation has always existed and that history and language were largely written by those who did not deviate, or strove to maintain a certain norm.

On the other hand, there is still that lingering history mentioned above. As much as I have embraced the above two modes of thinking in the past and part of me still wants to, I still see logical opposition to it. I think that using these terms or taking them for our own still presupposes an original.

So in that respect, no I am not denying the existence of masculine and feminine in a queer context, because that would require that masculine and feminine in the queer context be completely uniform...which was part of my original argument: that masculine and feminine are not uniform.

However, what I am saying is that's it's worth considering that other words come to be used (simply butch and femme, for example, as I suggested earlier) in order to describe how exactly a butch is butch, and a femme is femme.

It's impossible for me to singlehandedly deny that masculine and feminine exist in any queer context. But I do still think there is a presupposition of a heteronormative original (which there is, given the origins of the words) even when we say that we "queer" these two terms. Like: "it was theirs, but now its ours." But that means that the "ours" did not exist before or at the same time as the creation of the "theirs." Which is incorrect, imo. It's just that language did not take it into account, and so I think we should strengthen our own language.