A Butch Roadmap

Posted on July 16, 2009 in on butches | 9 Comments

Ivan Coyote (#6 in the Top Hot Butches list), has just released a piece on his column for xtra.ca called A Butch Roadmap, and it really is a must-read. Here’s a snippet (reprinted with permission):

The word for you is butch. Remember this word. It will be used against you.

The word for you is butch. Your history is one of strength, and survival, and largely silent. Do not hide this word under your shirt. Do not whisper it, or sweep it under the basement stairs. Let it fill up your chest and widen your shoulders. Wear it like a sleeve tattoo, like a medal of valour.

Learn to recognize other butches for what they really are: your people. Your brothers or sisters. Both are just words that mean family.

Other butches are not your competition, they are your comrades.

Be there when they need you. Go fishing together. Help each other move. Polish your rims or your chrome or your boots together. See these acts for what they really are: solidarity.

Do not give your butch friend a hard time about having a ponytail, a pomeranian, nail polish, or a smart car. Get over yourself. You are a rare species, not a stereotype.

Trim your nails short enough that you could safely insert your fingers into your own vagina, should you ever want to.

It makes me want to write my own butch roadmap, my own tips and tricks and suggestions and ideas for being butch and pursuing this identity. I’ll have to think on this idea for a while, let it percolate.

What about you – what kind of things would be on your butch roadmap? Or femme roadmap?

9 Comments | Category: on butches | Tags: butch, butch/femme, finding ourselves, forgive any errors it's too early for me to do adequate editing, gender, how to draw a map where there is none, ivan coyote, quotes

Top Hot Butches of 2009: Help!

Posted on May 27, 2009 in on butches | 53 Comments

The 2009 AfterEllen Hot 100 list was announced on May 11th – it’s “the sexiest women according to women” (as opposed to other hot lists, which are picked by men). I kinda enjoy this list, I’ve followed AE’s lists in the past few years, but this year especially I looked through it thinking, where are all the butches?

Seriously, in this, 2009, The Year Of Dr. Rachel Maddow’s Serious Badassness, there are only … what, 6? (at best) genderqueer, andro, or masculine women included in the list of 100 hot women.

This year, unlike other years, AE also put out some supplemental lists of Out Women, Women of Color, and Women Over 40. Aw, isn’t that nice – they’re at least recognizing that this Hot 100 Chosen By Women List is completely lacking in women who are publically out, not white, and not young. And yet … still no acknowledgment that, according to this list, sexy women are feminine.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from running Sugarbutch for three years, it’s that there are a whole lot of y’all out there who think butches and genderqueerness and masculinity on women is hot.

So, let me introduce to you: the 2009 Sugarbutch Top Hot Butches list.

Here’s how it’s going to work:

Leave a comment nominating a genderqueer, andro, masculine, or butch woman who did something awesome in 2009 (or late 2008). Like the other top hot lists, this list will lean more toward celebrities and folks who are somehow in the public sphere. Linking to a hot photo of her or to an article about her would be a bonus. NOTE: these women do not have to identify as butch, but should be at least somewhat masculine, androgynous, or genderqueer in appearance. It would be best if she was out, but that won’t ban her from the list.
A panel of judges will determine the order of hotness. (I know, other hot lists are chosen by voting, but I am not able to compile and coordinate and count votes, so this is the best way to do it.) The panel will include a couple self-identified butches, some femmes who love butches, and a few genderqueer folks who love butches too. I’ll announce the judges soon. The list will be judged by sexiness primarily, but other factors include: impact on society, major accomplishments, queer community work, etc. If you’ve got other suggestions for how we should determine a) who should be on this list or b) how we should determine the order, leave that in the comments too.
The list will be posted on Sugarbutch in June for all your swooning butch-love attention.

So, tell me – who are the hottest butches in 2009?

53 Comments | Category: on butches | Tags: 2009 sugarbutch top hot butches list, after ellen's hot 100 list, butch, celebreality, help help help!, how can rachel maddow NOT be #1?, I promise not to fix the voting, participation, rachel maddow, ranking people according to hotness seems mean but it's all in good fun, there's a serious lack of masculine female representation

What do you call your butch?

Posted on April 20, 2009 in on butches | 37 Comments

Specifically, when she’s a top, what do you call her in bed? Sir? Daddy? Master? Boi? If she’s a bottom, what do you call her?

What do you call your butch in more casual flirtation? Slick? Handsome? Cowboy?

If you are butch: what do you like to be called? What greeting makes your knees weak, or makes you feel like king of the world?

I’m sure there are others, but these spring to mind. There are so many cute pet names for a romantic partner, but when playing intentionally with gender in a relationship, sometimes “baby” or “honey” or “sweetie” or “darling” are too feminine.

So: how do you address someone masculine in a pet-name kind of way? And why?

37 Comments | Category: on butches | Tags: ask the readers, butch, butch pet names, call me handsome and I melt, gender theory, language, masculinity, pet names, places where language fails us, questions for the blogosphere (I hate that word), romantic relationships, this came up between me & kristen, ways masculinity needs to be reclaimed, why my readers are the best

On Butch Eyebrows: waxed or natural?

Posted on March 31, 2009 in on butches | 14 Comments

That’s the question I posed to the hive mind an hour ago. And like all terribly important dilemma questions, I got a slew of responses:

I especially like what Janie said – that eyebrows “should be sculpted minimally to best feature one’s eyes.” Uh, so, how does one do that?

And you’re going to have to educate me I’m afraid: wtf is this “threading” business? I thought it was similar to waxing. Why recommend it in particular for butches? What’s the difference? I’m confused.

PS: I promise I won’t turn this blog into a mirror of what I’m doing on twitter. There are much smut and omphaloskepsis and media reviews and gender explorational writings in progress.

14 Comments | Category: on butches | Tags: butch, butch education, butch questions about the beauty industry, butchscaping, costuming, eyebrows, gender, grooming, I really need a goddamn haircut, masculine beauty products, the hive mind (aka twitter), things that probably aren't important but that occupy my mind, three days until I turn 30

L Word Serenade

Posted on January 18, 2009 in eye candy, miscellany | 8 Comments

By comedian Rebecca Drysdale, aka Beck D. Posted in honor of the L Word’s last season, premiering today.

I am one of the many dykes who has a love/hate relationship with the L Word … sometimes the sex sure is hot (Sherry Jaffey, Carmen) but oh my god the drama (Jenny) and the ridiculous characters (Jenny) and the horrible character arcs (Jenny, Max, Shane, Tina, and uh … everyone else) make me want to throw things at my TV. Yet, like many of us, still I watch, mostly for the cultural references and the community knowledge. It’s all we’ve got, I guess.

But then there’s spinoff art like this rap video, above, and I am so glad I get at least most of the inside jokes.

8 Comments | Category: eye candy, miscellany | Tags: another white dyke rapping, bring carmen back!, butch, cultural subconscious, eye candy, it's not the way that I live, L word, video

Queer Eye Candy is back!

Posted on December 15, 2008 in eye candy | 5 Comments

It’s official – the Eye Candy has moved off of Sugarbutch Chronicles and is now on QueerEyeCandy.com, being maintained by myself and Amber and Denise.

BIG thank you to both of them for helping me out! Round of applause, please!

The focus remains on butch/femme portraits and photos and images. Please continue to submit pictures of you, your sister, your girlfriend, your wife, your gang, your crew, your best friends, your ex, your teachers, your mentors, your lovers.

Portrature – especially self-portrature – was actually a big piece of my own personal identity development, and I think it’s really important to see ourselves reflected, to be able to study photos of myself and say, is that what I look like? really? as I was discovering and uncovering and creating and re-creating my own aesthetic.

I was just looking at some old photos this weekend and found some after I’d cut my hair all off (in 2000) but before I was claiming butch, when I was dying my hair red and still wearing lipstick. I found a photo of me with a daisy chain crown, and no I am not kidding. It was a trip to look through the photos, watch my hair change as my haircuts started getting more and more butch, after I stopped dying it red and stopped wearing low-cut shirts, when I started figuring out what I really wanted my gender to be, what my soft animal body really loved and how I felt most comfortable, most like myself.

As butches and femmes, we don’t see ourselves in popular media, except usually as a stereotype or a (usually unflattering) archetype. I mean we don’t even see lesbians reflected in popular media all that often, let alone queers or genderqueers or butches and femmes – which is partially why we consume and watch and love just about any film that has lesbian characters, just about any book with lesbian characters, just about any crappy TV show with lesbian characters (*cough*L Word*cough*), because we are so starved to see images of ourselves reflected back to us, some semblance of recognition or some flash of similarities between our lives and the lives of the stories we watch and consume.

Aside from the validation of seeing queer eye candy, there’s also the personal revelations of just figuring out what your body looks like, how others might see us externally – shifting the gaze from seeing out through our eyes to seeing what our eyes look like from outside. It’s powerful, and brings, I think, a greater self-awareness and, hopefully, self-confidence.

Speaking of self-confidence: what I said before about requiring comments on Queer Eye Candy still holds true. I don’t write for comments, I don’t expect people to comment on my own things (though I of course appreciate it), but the photos that are sent in are often from people who are not used to having a web presence, are not used to revealing themselves for a queer audience to consume and judge.

Putting images of yourself out there like this is vulnerable. Scary: What if I’m not butch enough? What if I’m not femme enough? What if I’m not really hot? Come on, all of us think that when we see images of ourselves posted.

This is not a “hot or not” project – this is more of a project a la Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink – what does your brain do when you first glance at the queer eye candy photo? Do you think “hubba hubba, omg hot!!”? WRITE THAT. Do you think “holy crap I have that same shirt! I wonder if it looks that good on me?” WRITE THAT. Do you think “Oh good lord, I would marry her on looks alone”? (That’s Bevin’s line I shamelessly stole.) GO FOR IT.

This is about building self-confidence through appearance. About celebrating the myriad of ways that butch and femme get represented through visual styles and identity.

So: Submit photos. Comment on photos. And you will make this top very, very happy.

From the Queer Eye Candy mission statement:

You might be afraid of us, but you don’t know who we are.

We’re hot, we’re fierce, we’re vulnerable, we’re beautiful, we’re in love, we’re horribly ugly, we’re scared, we’re tender-hearted, we’re dog mommies and daddies, we’re parents, we’re children, we’re neices and nephews, we’re married, we’re bachelors, we’re rednecks, we’re blue-collar, we’re construction workers, we’re political pundits, we’re musicians, we’re drag performers, we’re community organizers, we’re angry, we’re activists, we’re just us.

Let’s show off who we are. Let’s show those who don’t know what we look like, let’s show off who we love and who we spend our time with, let’s show off our joyous communities and our heartaches and our hardships and our work and our play and our joy.

Let’s celebrate ourselves, just as we are.

5 Comments | Category: eye candy | Tags: activism through celebration, best of, butch, butch/femme aesthetic, costuming, eye candy, getting toppy with the blogosphere, hot butches, how to make me pleased, how to submit, images of ourselves, markers, queer eye candy is back! and better than ever!, what we look like

and the winner is …

Posted on December 12, 2008 in giveaways! | 2 Comments

The envelope please:

Thanks to the random number generator, the winner of the DVD of Good Dyke Porn is … samantha!

Bevin Branlandingham, fabulous host of the FemmeCast: Queer Fat Femme’s Podcast Guide to Life, came up with the idea of asking y’all what your 2009 sex goals were, and as all the responses (54 of them!) came in, she and I kept talking about how increasingly moved we were. “I was overwhelmed at their commitment to visualizing and actualizing their sexual goals,” Bevin just chatted to me. “The first step to good sex is to know what you want, or at least know what you want to try. Then to communicate that.”

And she wanted to throw in a little extra sumthin-sumthin: a fabulous comedy CD Almost Pretty by butch comic Kelli Dumham! Kelli is the Butch Dyke Comedian in Residence for the FemmeCast and performs all over the country.

Hope you enjoy them both, Samantha!

Samantha’s shared with us her Goals for 2009:

1.) Do NOT fuck any clingy/needy people. This is an absolute, and must be followed. More of a rule, actually.

2.) Fuck a girl that actually knows how to top. You might think this would be simple, but D.C. is severely lacking in the dykey, top department.

3.) Get restrained. I’ve done the whole multiple-uses-of-a-handcuff thing. Now im extremely interested in being tied up with rope, and being a complete submissive. Pushing the pain/pleasure bounds.

4.) Lastly, watching more porn….preferably with a partner. I normally don’t watch porn, nor do I own any….this is where this whole video thing would come in handy Mr. Sexsmith ;)

Damn good goals, if you ask me.

Samantha, I hope you very much enjoy the Good Dyke Porn and the fun dyke comedy. If you feel like writing up a paragraph of your review of it, I’m sure other Sugarbutch visitors would love to know how you find it!

December is now unofficially the give-away month, and I’ve got a few more things for y’all in the next few weeks. Hey, it’s a dark time of year, we need a little extra lovin’! Keep an eye out for locking sex toy cases from For Your Nymphomation, two subscriptions to the Crash Pad Series website, minutes for video-on-demand downloads at Hot Movies for Her, and Come Together Gift Baskets!

2 Comments | Category: giveaways! | Tags: affiliates, butch, butch comics are so controversial, comedy, contests, giveaways, good dyke porn, winners

Butch women celebrating their Inner Princesses

Posted on December 8, 2008 in PSA, eye candy | 2 Comments

Inner Princess, three butch women celebrating their inner princesses, is playing a show on December 11 at Sugarland in Brooklyn with Bitch and some other folks. myspace.com/innerprincess or innerprincessmusic.com for clips, photos, and more information.

Inner Princess
Thursday, December 11
8:00 at Sugarland
221 N. 9th St., Brooklyn, New York 11211
Cost: sliding scale

Photos borrowed from innerprincessmusic.com. Thanks to M for sending on the concert information!

2 Comments | Category: PSA, eye candy | Tags: bands, butch, events, eye candy, inner princess, music, new york city, things to do with extra money, three butch women celebrating their inner princesses

Eye Candy: Rachel Maddow, again

Posted on October 29, 2008 in eye candy | 13 Comments

If I do too many more posts about the bromance I’m having with Rachel Maddow, I’m going to have to put it under aspiring stud … or I’m going to have to rename this blog “Maddow Fans.”

But I can’t resist. There are some new photos from the New York Times Magazine interview, A Pundit in the Country, and I’ve done a bit more of my homework.

First! Two things you should know:

Rachel has “doubled the audience for a cable news channel’s 9 p.m. hour in a matter of days.” This is totally amazing.
If you happen to not be a TV person (I’m not), or can’t seem to get home by 9pm to watch the Maddow Show (I can’t), or primarily watch all your TV via Netflix (I do), or never get to a friend’s house to watch their recorded episodes (I’m too busy drinking prosecco with the Muse to watch TV) – NEVER FEAR! As of today, the MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show is now reproducing the ENTIRE RMS via podcast at Rachel.MSNBC.com.

And now: the butchest interview in the history of butch interviews. An excerpt from the recent New York Times Magazine article:

Always on her: A handkerchief. One of my liabilities as a broadcaster is that I am little teary. Having a handkerchief is handy. My partner, Susan Mikula, buys me cute ones.

Always in fridge: Champagne. I always keep a bottle, because you might need to celebrate at any moment, and a bunch of mustard, because I am a mustard person.

Obsolete item she won’t part with: I have a little stockpile of lawn mowers, some of which it has been years since they worked. But it seems wrong to get rid of lawn mowers, so I keep them.

Clothing item a talk-show host needs: For me, it is sneakers, which I can wear 80 percent of the time, secretly behind the desk. That reminds me who I am, even though I am dressed up like an assistant principal in order to meet the minimum dress code for being on television.

She drives: I have a seven-year-old Ford pickup. Remember, I have to go to the dump.

Hobby: I am a hobbyist bartender. I have a liquor cabinet. I research classic drinks from the golden age of American cocktails and I make them for me and Susan.

Favorite obscure liquor: Rhum agricole. It is rum made from sugar-cane juice rather than molasses. It is freaking awesome.

Hat tip to the femme top, who pointed me toward the following story which describes how Maddow met her partner, Susan Mikula.

And I quote:

Maddow walked into her life after Mikula told mutual friends she needed a “yard boy” to help her manage the demands of a creaky old structure that had stood empty for almost a year as well as the 2 acres of vegetation that were threatening to take over.

“Zing went the heartstrings,” according to both of them, when Maddow, 31, a Rhodes Scholar and gay activist, arrived for the job. Maddow had moved to the area to write her doctoral dissertation comparing AIDS policies in the California and British prison systems, but also needed to earn some money. A year-and-a-half later, on Halloween, she moved in.

-from Weekday Bantering is Balanced by Quiet New England Weekends – February 24, 2005 by Eric Goldscheider