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

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

Bring it on: Ongoing call for Queer Eye Candy

Posted on November 6, 2008 in eye candy | 2 Comments

Let’s have it, folks. Email photos of your beautiful genderqueer selves to queereyecandy@gmail.com or add your photos to the Queer Eye Candy group on Flickr which myself and the lovely Alisha are monitoring.

I’ve been slow to ask for femme eye candy, but ever since we started that discussion I’ve planned to get back to it, planned to ask for submissions of femmes. I was, for a minute there, concerned that asking for femme eye candy would turn into a strange way of objectifying women and femininity, but honestly? I’m over that. There are dozens – thousands! – of ways to be femme, and I want to see ‘em.

And recently I posted a bunch of eye candy photos of couples getting married, and I really liked that. There is such beauty and love in those photos. I want to see more of those, whether you’re married or not, I want to see photos of you and your beloved, locked in embrace or laughing or arguing or crying or in awe of some beautiful bit of the natural world or with your neices & nephews or with your cats … or anything! Couples, groups, communities, friends, your drinking buddies, your pool game.

Let’s have it.

Let’s go beyond butches and femmes (though I will always have a soft spot for that particular aesthetic, sigh) and make it a call for any sort of gender-queer-ness out there.

Andro dykes, trans guys, trans women, bois, babyqueers, grrrrls, transfeminine, transmasculine, no-gender, two-spirit, three-spirit, cowboy nerds, working-class, high-class, high femme, high butch, gentleman butch, feminist, cross-dressers, all of you queers: what do you look like?

Here’s what you’re going to include:

[Required] Names of people featured in the photograph (can be initials/pseudonyms):

[Required] Caption:

[Required] Tags: [Can be anything - queer, genderqueer, nothing, just me, butch, femme, dapper dandy, high femme princess, dolly parton drag queen, andro butch-leaning dyke - anything!]

[Optional] Photographer:

Photos must be high quality – preferably at least 600×400. Tasteful nudes are okay, but should be much more on the art-photography side and not the explictly-naked side. Yes, this is a sexblog, but I try to keep the images safe for reading at work.

So let’s have it.

C’mon, bring it on.

This country is afraid of us, but they 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 celebrate ourselves, just as we are.

2 Comments | Category: eye candy | Tags: celebrating gender identity, eye candy, gender, photographs, submit, ways I'm distracting myself from the homophobic political climate

8against8: Teri & Lisa

Posted on October 23, 2008 in activism, eye candy | 3 Comments

Ceremony wide, originally uploaded by mbax.

Teri and Lisa, in celebration of our love. Oct ’08

3 Comments | Category: activism, eye candy | Tags: eye candy, gay marriage, photographs, wedding

8against8: Ariel and Amy

Posted on October 23, 2008 in activism, eye candy | 1 Comment

A couple photos from Ariel Levy’s wedding to Amy Norquist, as published in New York Magazine.

The accompanying article is The Lesbian Bride’s Handbook by Ariel Levy, and discusses Ariel’s process going up to the wedding, especially in buying the wedding dress.

And yes, this is kind of gratuitous eye candy, but I just adore that photograph of Ariel & Amy, they look so happy and so beautiful. (I also really love the idea of wearing a white suit at my own wedding.)

8against8 – 8 bloggers, 8 days, $8,000 – Vote NO on Proposition 8

1 Comment | Category: activism, eye candy | Tags: activism, ariel levy, eye candy, gay marriage, photographs, the perfect dress, vote no on proposition 8

eye candy: buxa

Posted on July 7, 2008 in eye candy | 5 Comments

“This lovely buxa – Chicana butch – is E-lo.
She loves to make art, listen to cumbias and norteñas,
and to play butch/femme dress up with me! She’s oh soo yummy!”
- from Laura, who also sent in the Womyn in Construction eye candy

5 Comments | Category: eye candy | Tags: butch, butch accessories, eye candy, photograph

eye candy: hot pink hat

Posted on June 18, 2008 in eye candy | 7 Comments

The Sugar Butch in the photo is Azaan Kamau – the author and publisher of
In The Midst of My Blackness. Azaan loves jet skiing, writing, boating,
taking photos, and fighting for LGBT Rights! (Photo Credit: Azaan Kamau)

7 Comments | Category: eye candy | Tags: accessories, butch, eye candy, glasses, hat

eye candy: bedroom eyes

Posted on June 12, 2008 in eye candy | 8 Comments

My hot papi Jess of HouseofJero.com. She’s bringin’ butchly back. – Tina

Tina sent me three shots of her partner Jess because, she said, she couldn’t just choose one. It was tough! This one is so smooth. I actually met these two at Curly McDimple’s queer blogger weenie roast last summer (and there will be another one!), and I gotta say, they’re really sweet together. Tina’s quite the eye candy herself.

And, uh, didja notice that headboard? Looks very … functional.

8 Comments | Category: eye candy | Tags: bedroom eyes, butch, community, eye candy, friends, new york city