Butch
Butch and femme are terms often used in the lesbian and gay subcultures to describe approximate equivalents of traditional masculine and feminine gender roles, respectively, of members of the same sex within a relationship, or to describe individuals.
However, homosexual relationships do not easily fit into butch and femme stereotypes. For example, the term lipstick lesbian may refer to a feminine woman who is attracted to other feminine women. Among homosexuals the practices of 'femme on femme' and 'butch on butch' sex preferences are sometimes repressed by cultural mores. Many butch gay men will only date other masculine men, though others prefer femme men.
Some "butch" lesbians have exaggerated masculine traits: military dress or demeanor (short-cropped hair), deliberate machismo, chivalry, and sometimes rudeness.
Among lesbians, the butch-femme pairing in relationships was more common among lesbians of older generations. In Debra A. Wilson's documentary The Butch Mystique an older woman named Matu says that this was because in the past a woman was in physical danger if she was obviously with another woman in a romantic capacity, and butch women felt that being tough was necessary to protect themselves and their female companions.
However, "inherent to butch-fem relationships was the presumption that the butch is the physically active partner and the leader in lovemaking....Yet unlike the dynamics of many heterosexual relationships, the butch's foremost objective was to give sexual pleasure ot a fem....The essense of this emotional/sexual dynamic is captured by the ideal of the "stone butch," or untouchable butch....To be untouchable meant to gain pleasure from giving pleasure. Thus, although these women did draw on models in heterosexual society, they transformed those models into an authentically lesbian interaction." (Davis and Lapovsky, 1989)
Many young people today eschew butch or femme classifications, believing that they are inadequate to describe an individual, or that labels are limiting in and of themselves. Some people within the queer community have tailored the common labels to be more descriptive, such as "soft stud," "hard butch," "gym queen," or "tomboy femme."
Women involved in Aristasia have been described as "not so much butch and femme as femme and femmer". They associate themselves with one of two feminine "sexes" - blonde and brunette (which have nothing to do with hair-colour!). Brunettes are femme but sensible (think of the 1950s librarian or schoolmistress type) while blondes are fluffy and ultra-femme. Accusations that they are promoting stereotypes are usually met with cheerful acceptance ("Stereoptypes - we love 'em" wrote one Aristasian). However the blonde-brunette role-models are in practice very subtle and flexible, and the real rationale behind the idea is an assertion of femininity among women who prefer women: not a femininity defined in relation to masculinity, but femininity within a feminine ambience.
Source
- Davis, Madeline and Lapovsky Kennedy, Elizabeth (1989). "Oral History and the Study of Sexuality in the Lesbian Community", Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian Past (1990), Duberman, etc, eds. New York: Meridian, New American Library, Penguin Books. ISBN 0452010675.
