Butches and Body Image - Let's Talk About It

[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.