Butches and Body Image - Let's Talk About It

[ArkansasPiscesGrrl]

When I first met my partner, she kept repeating "but I am NOT a butch!" Yeah right. I could FEEL the butch, male energy rolling off of her. 'Bout knocked me over! It was how she walked (she had the swagger going on), how she talked, how she sat, how she dressed... yes it was all of that, but damnit it was WAAY more than that! It came from within her. It was a palpable aura and energy that was just HER. And the femme in ME, the woman in me who has loved on and lusted over butch women for most of my life, woke up, became ALIVE again. Skin-pricklies going on. Breath-catching going on. That inner recognition in ME, recognizing and connecting with the butch energy in HER, THAT is what caught me. Would I have had the same reaction if she had red fingernails or was wearing a dress? If her butch energy was strong enough, it might have triggered something in me. Don't know. I do know that for me, the outer package is just part of it. I need and desire and connect with and give myself to that butch energy. My femme wants to dance the dance with that butch energy.

I was so NOT trying to presume to label her as a butch that first night, and in talks we've had later. I cannot or will not label anyone, that is for them to do. She has told me though, that I am the first person that has truly SEEN *her*, and accepted *her* as she is. She IS a butch, but she is a *woman* too. HELL YEAH! (I told her that for ME, she is exactly what I was looking for... she has the butch side and the female side as well. I get to play with both! Woo-hoo!)

[Silverseastar]

I'm obviously far from butch but wading in because this thread moved me. I have to agree that it's like some inner space that speaks outwardly to me no matter how a person presents (throw on a dress and I'll still see you but maybe not quite as easily). As a femme, butchness calls to an inner space in me. But just like all femmes are not the same, neither are all butches (thank gawd!).

In a society that constantly evaluates people, especially female genders, on a set of standards and expectations of beauty and attractiveness I don't think you can grow up and dodge that bullet. Being butch may even be more complicated because there are two standards to push against instead of one. There is a silent butch standard even in the queer community.

But no matter what standards might exist in life trying to meet them pulls us farther from our true selves and anyone that might fall for that version of us is falling in love with an idea not a person. So I have to agree with the other posters. Work on being the healthiest happiest YOU you can be and it will be attractive to the right person. Who you are shines from the inside and that is what is attractive.

[TimilDeeps]

Originally Posted by Silverseastar

I'm obviously far from butch but wading in because this thread moved me. I have to agree that it's like some inner space that speaks outwardly to me no matter how a person presents (throw on a dress and I'll still see you but maybe not quite as easily). As a femme, butchness calls to an inner space in me. But just like all femmes are not the same, neither are all butches (thank gawd!).

In a society that constantly evaluates people, especially female genders, on a set of standards and expectations of beauty and attractiveness I don't think you can grow up and dodge that bullet. Being butch may even be more complicated because there are two standards to push against instead of one. There is a silent butch standard even in the queer community.

But no matter what standards might exist in life trying to meet them pulls us farther from our true selves and anyone that might fall for that version of us is falling in love with an idea not a person. So I have to agree with the other posters. Work on being the healthiest happiest YOU you can be and it will be attractive to the right person. Who you are shines from the inside and that is what is attractive.

Well said....

[clay]

Originally Posted by TimilDeeps

Well said....

Ditto, Silverseastar!!!

[Miss Scarlett]

Originally Posted by claybaby

Ditto, Silverseastar!!!

i concur as well...

[clay]

For me, I don't "march to anyone else's drumbeat! I march to my own! I don't give a darn about society's "standards" or ideas of how they may "perceive" I should act.
I am a LESBIAN, a woman, and I embrace that part of me. I do happen to enjoy wearing "sportier" clothing, and yes they are male clothing items. I wear them because it just feels right to me..it feels like ME.....I don't wear them because it is what is dictated to me by some other's ideas of whom I should be, do, act like, or dress like. I make MY own choices! I was a tomboi from as early as when I was walking....and by age 5 I was always "daddi" in playing house. Oh yes, we emulated the role models we had...but by age 23 I knew I walked a different pathway to my own inner journey..and I walked it on my own terms...no one else's.
I have never let anyone dictate how I should look, act, or be..it just is NOT negotiable. I have always tried to live by the old adage, "to thine own self, be true, then thou cannot be false to any (wo)man"
I am a rare breed of butch.... I am very tender hearted, gentle, compassionate, and very sentimental, and I wore my "heart on my sleeve" until a certain southern lady told me to roll it up in my sleeve..it was no longer available...grins.....I treat my partner as an equal in all respects. While we have dynamics we enjoy in our own personal space, again, we neither march to anyone else's drums...we make our own "rules of engagement"..allowing NO fashion police, no collar police, NO etiquette police, and No dom police to rule how we interact. But I digress.....
Superficiality has no place in my world. Someone who is out to "change" someone else will probably never be satisfied...there will most likely always be one more thing, one more way, or one more something that will make you be what they are trying to mold...
My own butchness comes from deep within my soul..it is something I was born with...I embraced that very early on in life...it isn't something learned, or studied, taught, or emulated..it resonates deep within me...it is my own drumbeat..it is that inner sanctum of where I reside....I dress for me, and me alone....I act for me, and me alone, and I love for me, and me alone...and when I find someone who "gets" me, gels with me, and we have the incredible synergies, chemistries, and dynamics that just work for us...we make our own symphony...NOT according to society or any other person..
My butchness can't be described in any particular terms, or be in a certain manner of dress, or be set by anyone else's standards...this is MY own personal aura....coming from within...it is my soul...my heart...my inner being...how I treat others...my own credo and motto, and my own outer wrapping as I so choose....I am after all, a human being..being "butch" is just one tiny part of this unique ME...it is my humaneness...my staying true to my own self...walking this journey with love, respect, and understanding of all others..and respecting their freedom to be who they are...and not trying to change the world..living within my own space...I am a woman...I am a human...I am loved...for being myself!
Excellent post, awesome feedback, and great idea for a thread, Alex! I just wanted to say I admire you...you have an awesome soul, buddy!!!

[Mr Nice Guy]

I've had pressure from a Femme because I wasn't big enough. I'm sorry but I'm not going to gain weight to make you feel more secure. I'm a small butch who can kick ass if I need too.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by Mr Nice Guy

I've had pressure from a Femme because I wasn't big enough. I'm sorry but I'm not going to gain weight to make you feel more secure. I'm a small butch who can kick ass if I need too.

i was once told i was not femme enough because i clean fish and don't always run around in skirts... my reply was less than "ladylike"

i agree i am not going to change to validate someone else.

[Ginger]

What an interesting thread, in content of course, but also in that so many femmes are responding to it!

It triggered a memory of a butch I knew a long time ago. She was a young, thin person, and talked about feeling pressure to put on weight! Big butch women teased her for not being "butch" enough, because she was small.

I realized then that oppression around body image was not limited to the cultural pressure on feminine women, to be thin!

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by IslandScout

What an interesting thread, in content of course, but also in that so many femmes are responding to it!

It triggered a memory of a butch I knew a long time ago. She was a young, thin person, and talked about feeling pressure to put on weight! Big butch women teased her for not being "butch" enough, because she was small.

I realized then that oppression around body image was not limited to the cultural pressure on feminine women, to be thin!

That's because femmes go through this stuff too.

We do.

[dykeumentary]

Originally Posted by Cajun_dee

That's because femmes go through this stuff too.

We do.

Please tell us more about this.

[Soft*Silver]

I am opening up two resale clothing shops..one for plus sized females, and one for all sized males.

I fully expect males to be shopping in the female store, and females to be shopping in the male store

for themselves.

I want my stores to be a place where people feel valued for who they are, not what number they wear, or what gender they need to costume up as.

I have gone thru such an incredible evolution over the past few years. I am as femme as they come yet I certainly dress quite different. At times, I could almost pass as butch, if wardrobe were the only thing that would define as such.

My sub is a bio male who is 6'5" and MASSIVE. And femme. I buy him lingerie as well as carharts. He is all muscle but hates the outdoors. I wear nailpolish and heels and live to be dirty, either gardening or at the barns. He wears red lipstick. I wear pink. He has long hair. I have short. We both are round bellied. I am enchanted by him. He desires me. We both feel good about ourselves (now)...and that is where worth comes in. It costs us so much when we value ourselves thru others' eyes, but its priceless when we treasure who we are ourselves. The enormity of this treasure is one of the many reasons we are so drawn to one another. Regardless of how we fit in the world, we fit with each other. Yet, first and foremost, we had to journey on our own, to where we first felt we fit as Our Selves.

in the past we both have felt like the world disowned us by gender because we didnt fit the norm. We both felt at different times in our lives, we were freaks and felt shame over it. And yet we also fit the "norm" as well. We could "pass" as "acceptable". Yet what we realy wanted was to be defined as acceptable by not "passing" but simply "being"...

People can live in dual realities that split open like atoms depending on who is viewing us, and that includes ourselves.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by dykeumentary

Please tell us more about this.

i can only speak for myself. i am a girl, a woman, a femme ... thats who i am. i didn't go out and find a label then try to conform to it. i am me and if there is a label out there fine i don't care, but i can't live up to someone expectations of what the label means.

i also like to play in the mud, catch, clean and cook my own fish, i want to drive my own boat thank you. i can change the oil in my truck and am very mechanically inclined. i fix things. i am just as comfy in overalls (sometimes i even wear a shirt with them) and workboots as i am in a sundress and sandals. i don't cater to long nails but my toes are well taken care of. i guess at tomboy at times, i've always been that.

WHen i left my job as a banking officer i ditched all of my dress up clothes and enjoyed a life of not having to deal with all of it. i love jeans, a nice shirt and boots, i cuss, i cut my hair off if it gets in the way.

i have been with butches who felt my being less than high femme was not acceptable. i will never forget the look on my exes face when she walked in and i had my hand in a fish's gut. She was horrified and said femmes just don't do those sorts of things.

i was told to get fingernails and wear more *feminine* clothes.

One day a butch was at my house visiting when it began to pour down raining. My boat was filling up with water... she went out to bail it... i grabbed my pump and hooked my battery up to it like i always did. Afterwards she told me i took away her butch card by doing that. i suppose i was to let my boat sink so her so called pride could stay in tact? She said i kill her pride.

There was a butch on the forums somewhere that said she asks if a femme has long nails before they even start talking. i thought that was so sad.


The day i have to be someone else to validate my partner is a sad day indeed.

[Scuba]

First let me say. I speak ONLY for me and anything put down in this post refers ONLY to how I feel. I am not making blanket statements in anything I write here but only trying to lay out the experiences I have had.

I identify as butch/queer. I only identify because it helps OTHERS understand who I am. If I had a choice, I would like to identify as Chris but that's a whole different topic.

To me, the media is just downright evil when it comes to defining the human form whether masculine, feminine or other. How would it be if we all just lived in the dark? I wouldn't question my body or appearances because, well, what would I be comparing it to? I fully admit that commercialized beauty gets into my fragile little psyche and does a number on it. Do I want to look like an Adonis? Hell yes. Do I? Hell no. Do I care? Hell yes. Do I want to care? Absolutely not. It is a struggle. It is a daily struggle. It makes me feel superficial and shallow and I hate that.

There are days when I wake up and look in the mirror and think "there is NO way in HELL I'd show this body to anyone". Since I am not considering transitioning, I need to come to a happy compromise when it comes to what I "see" and what is real. For me, this is simply eating well, working out and keeping my body fit. Notice, I didn't say lean. I said fit. However, commercialized beauty will either send me under the blanket on the couch (there's now way I can measure up to society's expectations) or it motivates me back to the gym. This is a crap shoot on any given day and I tend to react both ways.

It's no wonder folks have eating disorders. I know for me, I choose my clothing wisely. I am actually quite anal about this. I buy only men's clothing and make sure that it makes my physique look masculine. Shopping for me is a chore and not a fun one. It takes a lot of trying on of clothes to make me happy. It can be depressing and makes me go to that "under the blanket place" pretty quickly. Especially when you finally find that brand that fits and they change it or discontinue it.

As far as what femmes expect? I can't answer that. But I do catch myself posturing and puffing out the chest sometimes. Does this help my cause? I have no idea. I'm sure I get more snickers than anything. The bottom line in my world is: everyone is different and well, not everyone is for everyone.

I am at a place in my life now where my body image is all about me. I need to be happy with how I look. Really, that's all that matters. I don't always get to that place but that's okay. I do believe that when I feel like I look like a million bucks (even if I just stepped off of a dirt pile) then others see that in me as well. Confidence does amazing things...just saying.

The overall sentiment that it's how we feel inside that defines us is the absolute truth. There is indeed someone for everyone.

Cheers,

Scoobs

[clay]

well spoken, Scoobs!!! ^5 dood!

[Kelt]

Originally Posted by scubadyke

First let me say. I speak ONLY for me and anything put down in this post refers ONLY to how I feel.
Scoobs

Actually, you spoke quite well for me too. Thank you.

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by ArkansasPiscesGrrl

When I first met my partner, she kept repeating "but I am NOT a butch!" Yeah right. I could FEEL the butch, male energy rolling off of her. 'Bout knocked me over! It was how she walked (she had the swagger going on), how she talked, how she sat, how she dressed... yes it was all of that, but damnit it was WAAY more than that! It came from within her. It was a palpable aura and energy that was just HER. And the femme in ME, the woman in me who has loved on and lusted over butch women for most of my life, woke up, became ALIVE again. Skin-pricklies going on. Breath-catching going on. That inner recognition in ME, recognizing and connecting with the butch energy in HER, THAT is what caught me. Would I have had the same reaction if she had red fingernails or was wearing a dress? If her butch energy was strong enough, it might have triggered something in me. Don't know. I do know that for me, the outer package is just part of it. I need and desire and connect with and give myself to that butch energy. My femme wants to dance the dance with that butch energy.

I know what you're saying I think, in terms of falling in love with a butch-appearing and acting woman who doesn't identify as butch. Looking back on why I fell so hard for someone like that, I realize it was because her sexual energy expressed in a dominating way that I was drawn to, and of course, our emotional connection was strong; I'd never met anyone so gentle, brilliant and focused on me.

When things started to go bad, it wasn't because of the ways we ID, though I've wondered if a little b/f dynamic might not have helped us through some of the hard times.

*****************

Lately I've realized that one thing I love about women who ID as butch is their sense of humor about their differences from femmes or more feminine women. Also, they see what is femme in me, in a more positive light than a non-butch woman would.

Just talking about my own experience, of course. It sounds like your experience, ArkansasPiscesGrrl, has been really positive.

[Little Fish]

IslandScout:
Lately I've realized that one thing I love about women who ID as butch is their sense of humor about their differences from femmes or more feminine women. Also, they see what is femme in me, in a more positive light than a non-butch woman would.

Scout,
I've been thinking about this since you wrote it. I've realized more recently in my life that while I am eternally attracted to feminine women, it's really the femme ID'd woman who understands me as Butch in a way that the non-Femme (but feminine women) do not. A woman the who really "owns" her Femme title, is the one to really "own" me....;-)

(see what I did there? lol--I tried to pull that off with a straight face but no....*smirking*)

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by Little Fish

IslandScout:
Lately I've realized that one thing I love about women who ID as butch is their sense of humor about their differences from femmes or more feminine women. Also, they see what is femme in me, in a more positive light than a non-butch woman would.

Scout,
I've been thinking about this since you wrote it. I've realized more recently in my life that while I am eternally attracted to feminine women, it's really the femme ID'd woman who understands me as Butch in a way that the non-Femme (but feminine women) do not. A woman the who really "owns" her Femme title, is the one to really "own" me....;-)

(see what I did there? lol--I tried to pull that off with a straight face but no....*smirking*)

Dear Little Fish,

Thanks for that glimpse of how your mind works

Clearly, I have much to learn about the butch sense of humor—thankfully, though, I am a quick study, or so I've been told.

Sincerely,

Scout

[mr.misnomer]

i'm new to the planet. hope nobody minds if i drop in here.

i've read a good bit of back and forth on self love and acceptance, on body concerns, and public response to the way many of us masculine/butch types appear. i don't have any wisdom to impart on any of these topics. i can only share my experience.

for me, accepting my body has been a thing that i've had to do more than once. as i age, my body changes, and my feelings about it change. as i age, and my perspective changes, my feelings about my place in the world change. and, honestly, as i age, the public (in general) seems a little more accepting (or, maybe i'm getting better at ignoring them . the only thing that stays constant is that, like that person you know/knew that's in a 'bad' relationship but can't/won't get out until they see it for what it is and see that their worth is greater than that relationship....you have to be in a place to see yourself as someone you like/love/accept and then put it to work for you. nobody can do it for you, no one can make you love yourself, nobody can change the way the world treats you...its about what you do with what you've got.

at the end of the day, i'm glad i'm gay. i'm glad i'm butch. i feel fortunate to live in a time and place when/where its a helluva lot easier to be all of these things than it was pre-stonewall. i try to focus on the up sides....makes all of life a little bit sweeter.

cheers!
mr. m