Butches and Body Image - Let's Talk About It

[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.

[Parker]

Originally Posted by WomenMoveMe

"Can I help you, sir?" For so many years this question tumbled from the mouths of those who did not know me. I thought this question came only because they were looking at my height, and the substance of me, and not the whole of me. Surely it could not be that they truly thought I was a man. Yes, I was 6’ tall and lean with shoulders wider than hip. Yes, I had short hair. Yes, I wore men’s clothing and shoes. Was this all it took to be thought a male?

Great post - all of it.

I go through this as well. One time, I stopped the clerk and asked him to look at me. He immediately apologized profusely, embarrassing me even more, but I persisted and refused to shrink away that day.

He told me he didnt see me, that he wasnt paying attention, that he saw the hat and assumed. I told him that was the point - that, instead of just glancing up and assuming, stop for a moment and look at the human being in front of him.

I have heard the excuse that it's my short hair, or it's my hat, or it's my clothes, or it's my stance - but in reality, people are just in too much of a hurry to stop and really *see* the people around them.

Because when you actually look at me, you can see the masculinity, sure; but you can also see the woman in which that masculinity resides.

[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.

[justkim]

dee, thank you so much for this... all of it... I am many things... most of all NOT afraid to get dirty... so my friend you are not alone...
For me I have been told that because my hair was short/shorter that I wasn't femme enough... Yet, when I came out I was told because I wore makeup, heels, skirts, and had long nails I wasn't a lesbian. I wear heels, skirts, my nails are long, and my toes are polished... mind you there is so much more to me than those things I have listed. I can work most power tools and I am not afraid to pick up a hammer...
I hate labels... I don't want to feel like a can of soup that can be removed from the shelf, looked over and put back because I am not femme enough...
I hope I have made some kind of sense as I have yet to have a full cup of coffee...

Lets all take a moment to truly see the person in front of us, no matter how they id...

Originally Posted by Cajun_dee

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.

[CherylNYC]

While I really enjoyed both Cajun Dee's and justkim's posts, and I understand that Dykumentary invited posts on femme experiences with body image, I think that these posts would be more appropriate in a different thread.

This is the Butch Zone. The OP started a really important conversation about butch body image. It seems that we femmes are far more experienced at discussing body image issues. It would be easy for us to overwhelm this thread, which is about a subject butches aren't often accustomed to addressing.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

While I really enjoyed both Cajun Dee's and justkim's posts, and I understand that Dykumentary invited posts on femme experiences with body image, I think that these posts would be more appropriate in a different thread.

This is the Butch Zone. The OP started a really important conversation about butch body image. It seems that we femmes are far more experienced at discussing body image issues. It would be easy for us to overwhelm this thread, which is about a subject butches aren't often accustomed to addressing.

Femmes are more experienced at discussing body image issues? Maybe i didn't get that because it's not for me. i felt comfortable answering in this thread when i was asked to as this seemed like a pretty safe place to talk about a sensitive issue for me. i appreciated that. i know Kim pretty well and feel safe to say she felt the same way. She can correct me if i am wrong on that. I've share some of the same experiences as the butches that have posted so letting them know they aren't alone in the BF world felt like a good thing. If NOT, i surely do apologize. i hardly think speaking up, when asked by a butch about this subject constitutes overwhelming a thread.

[Turtle]

For me, it is quite present the depth to which people are hurt by being put out of community and/or told they are not a "proper ______" - fill in the blank.

I believe our lives are for us to figure out who we are and that we do that in relationship with other beings. In this society (of course this is a generalization), there is more rejection, judgement, and damage than in some other societies where people are kinder and view young people as spiritual beings to be nurtured into healthy adulthood.

In my life, I try to be present and really see people and value who they are because we are all in different places in the process of learning how to be better, more full and conscious beings and I believe we should be helping, not hurting, each other as best we can.

I believe identity formation, be it butch or femme or anything else, is central to who we are as human beings.

...even if we end up letting go of said identity later on...it's all part of the process of becoming a more full human being capable of loving ourselves and others.

When I had someone tell me at the age of 14 when I was in a wedding in a lovely dress - that I looked so grown up - I needed to figure out why that compliment bothered me. I decided that what bothered me was that I was the same person that Saturday as I was the Sunday before when they saw me and that seeing me in a dress had nothing to do with who I really was at the time. They were not really seeing or knowing me.

And without these types of incidents and without spending the time thinking about them I would not come to know who I am and what I think about things...and for that I am thankful.

[Toughy]

This is a thread about butch body image in the butch zone. There are plenty of threads in the femme zone about femme body issues. I promise if a couple of three butches posted about our body image in a femme thread (even if asked by a femme) all holy hell would break loose.

Please take your femme stuff to the femme threads. Thank you

[Okiebug61]

Originally Posted by Turtle

For me, it is quite present the depth to which people are hurt by being put out of community and/or told they are not a "proper ______" - fill in the blank.

Yes unfortunately humans can be downright mean. I think there are times when we think this community or others we have belonged to would be a safe haven. Not so true!

Clicks are everywhere including here. If you don't fit the click you don't fit. There are some who judge everyone by looks and looks only.

I find it a shame that anyone feels bad about who they are, how they id and how they think they have to look to fit in.

All of us no matter our ID come in all shapes and sizes and that is what makes us all so damn cool!