Butches and Body Image - Let's Talk About It

[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.

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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.