A couple heated comments about my last post already, and I want to make a couple things clearer.

First:

I believe it is absolutely okay to not identify with the labels of butch or femme - or any label, for that matter. I think identity categories should be chosen by ourselves, not by others, and if a label is not chosen, it should not ever be imposed.

Period.

(Sometimes I feel like that should be written at the top and bottom of every post, just to make it clear. I want to write it in all caps, in bold, in italics, underlined: I support your identity, whatever it may be, even if it isn’t mine. And I also expect you to support mine.)

Also:

I’m not trying to say that, when someone is called butch or femme and does not identify that way, that that is not a misperception of your own personal identity - of course it is. That’s why the post was called “on misperceiving someone.”

It is insulting and difficult to be misperceived, to be misrepresented. As Daisy put it: “the person saying that doesn’t understand me, and like I’ve failed at gender expression.” I totally understand that - I hate being misperceived (as Daisy also points out, I said it bugs me when people told me “you’re not really butch”), but ultimately, that too is about the other person, not about my own identity. And just because one person misperceives me does not mean that I am not butch, if that is what I am choosing to call myself.

This clarification is important to me because I see many, many folks around me, many readers of this site, many of my friends, who tell me that they deeply want to identify as butch or femme, but are holding back for whatever reasons. Are suspicious of the identities, and are making their way down those paths of understanding how it will play out for them, in their own unique ways. I want to encourage that, when I can, share my knowledge of this identity process, and make it easier for someone else.

Now, on a related sidenote - being misperceived as butch or femme, or as not butch or not femme, is about the social policing of gender. The ways we, as a society and culture, enforce standards of gender on each other, on our friends and communities and lovers and strangers.

Miss Molly commented: “As much as we’d like to say there aren’t different rules in the queer community for butches and femmes, there are many of the double standards that exist for straight men and women.” Sure - there are standards out there, but they’re the same perceived cultural standards that enforce heterosexism and homophobia.

What I find most interesting here is who is doing the enforcing of these double standards. For example, I was in my favorite dyke watering hole not long ago and ordered a vodka cranberry with my usual bartender (who, at this point, calls me “dude” affectionately and shakes my hand when I walk in), and she actually leaned in close to me and said, “Are you sure? That’s awfully … sweet, you know.”

I cringed. Yes, I usually order beer and whiskey. Yes, the drink I ordered was “girly,” and my gender was insulted there, underneath that comment. But: this is about her, not about me. As I joke, sometimes: “I’m man enough to wear pink” - I’m also man enough (ahem, “man” enough, I should say) to order a cosmo or a midori sour or a vanilla vodka cranberry with a cherry if I want one. Yes, I know it’s a sweet drink. I’m aware of what I ordered, and I wouldn’t have ordered the drink if I didn’t want it.

Ultimately, that comment was about the bartender, and her ideas about how gender framework operates, not about me or how I operate. It is not her - or anyone’s - responsibility to police what they perceive to be my gender performance, and I’m at a point in my gender process and identity won’t let anyone else do it for me.

My point about that is this: Who is it that is making these “double standards?” Who enforces them? I read all sorts of things from all sorts of personal online diaries, articles, personal ads, queer media, books, gay culture - and everywhere I hear the same stories about butch and femme: those who don’t identify with butch and femme feel like they are being pushed to do so, and those who do feel like outcasts, like gender freaks who don’t fit in.

That’s a little heartbreaking to me, every time I get my Google alert with gender keywords in my inbox: yet another email full of “Femme women are noticeably less deviant and have a socially acceptable appearance,” and “a rigid and artificial dichotomy of male/butch/top/dominant and female/femme/bottom/submissive” and “the idea of ‘butch‘ and ‘femme’ is as frakked up as Albuquerque driving” and “all butches want to become men” and “I’m butch I suppose, but I’m no guy” and “all that boy/girl butch/femme crap - it’s not real!”

All over the lesbian/queer/dyke communities - my communities - I see people railing against this, from many perspectives. All I’m trying to do here is share my own stories and my own perceptions, illuminate the process a little bit, discuss it, open it up

I want to also echo Lady Brett’s comment: “If it does piss you off, it’s probably a matter of misperception. So, please, tell me. Give me the chance to fix it before you get offended.”

Yes. Please do tell me if I misperceive your identity. Tell anybody, when they misperceive any sort of identity of yours, not just in your gender identity. I’m not trying to blow off the misperception and to encourage you to just let them go on thinking you’re butch/femme/whatever - it is insulting! and, ultimately, inaccurate. Which makes us not feel seen, not feel acknowledged, not feel validated.

What I’m really getting at with that last post is the times when someone is misperceived, really in any way, and they are deeply insulted by it. There’s more to it than just “you don’t see me as I really am” - there’s this big set of implications because of those loaded words.

But again, I want to stress, I really believe that any misperception and insult is about the other person, not about me or my identity - and I do believe this goes both ways, being perceived as butch or not butch or femme or not femme or foreign or local or a hippie or a punk or bi or trans or anything that we don’t actually identify as.

Maybe I’m getting too Buddhist in my philosophies here. I was just reading Be the Person You Want to Find by Cheri Huber, and I’m feeling those philosophies seeping into my opinions on these subjects.

Identity categories are so personal, so intimate - and the theory around them is so slippery! I mean, if anyone can identify as anything, if social policing means nothing, then what is the real meaning of an identity label? Some theorists would say, ultimately, it’s all basically meaningless. I can get there, can understand those arguments - but I also know what it feels like to be inside of these identity categories, and to know precisely how it works for me, how it’s given me a beautiful structure in which to tinker and fuck around and play.

These topics are really difficult, and anytime I post something that gets heated and emotional, I always take the comments very seriously, and consider my points even harder. I am not claiming to speak for everyone here - man, that is one of the best things about blogs, is immediate discussion and feedback and comments like this. I’m only speaking from my own perspective about my own experience, with hopes that it occasionally is helpful to others. Speaking of the round-bellied-guy, I want to echo a quote from the Buddha that I’ve got hanging on my fridge, and was reminded of this week:

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

I often have conversations with folks who say that they have been perceived femme or butch, and they really don’t like it. That tweaks me a bit, for various reasons, not the least of which is that I spent years flat out telling people, “I identify as butch,” and I would still get the response, “oh, you’re not that butch,” or “you’re not really butch.”

These identities are deeply socially constructed and policed, on all sides - those of us who do claim them, those of us who don’t. They’re loaded, complex, and largely misperceived.

Calling someone femme or butch is not necessarily intended to be insulting - sometimes, it is meant with much love and praise. But if you don’t identify as such, it can feel insulting, regardless of the intention.

This happened again recently, and it got me thinking: here’s why it doesn’t have to feel insulting, regardless of the intention.

1. This is about them, not you

Maybe you don’t identify as “femme” or “butch” at all, maybe you see those labels as confining to who you are and how you want to express yourself. Great! Good for you. Celebrate your whole self, in any way you like, you betcha.

[Hopefully you simultaneously realize that it’s possible for others to find liberation and freedom inside of those categories, too, and that you don’t force your philosophy of rejecting gender identities onto others. But that still never means that you have to work within that framework.]

This other person calling you these things may simply be working within the framework where they see everyone on the feminine side of the gender galaxy as femme, and everyone on the masculine side as butch.

But ultimately that is not about you - that’s about their framework. That doesn’t make your framework wrong, and that doesn’t make your perspective, presentation, or philosophies any less valid.

This is about them, and their worldview, not about you and yours.

2. Misconception of the terms

My gender-activisty self gets my boxers in a twist, because being called femme or butch is NOT AN INSULT.

These words are loaded - I get that. And sometimes, it can actually be intended as an insult - but we don’t have to take it that way.

But think about what we perceive someone else to be implying when they call us butch or femme. Where is that coming from? Who is filling that in?

It’s like someone calling you a dyke or a fag or a queer. The person slinging the insult could mean deviant, sinner, immoral, freak, but those of us who have reclaimed these words can look beyond that to laugh it off and say, “yep, that’s me. Gotta problem with that?” (Clearly, they do have a problem with that. But that’s not your problem, it’s theirs.)

Same with butch and femme: these words have deeper, personal meaning to some people, and it’s possible to take the time to go inside of the words and figure out what they hold, figure out their power and their detriments. If we knew more about the way these words worked from the inside, perhaps we would get to a place when calling someone - who doesn’t identify as one of these terms (more on that in a second) - femme or butch doesn’t make us bristle and cringe.

Because it doesn’t have to.

Here’s my basic thoughts on what we think it means when someone calls us femme or butch:

a) Femme does not mean whiny, controlling, manipulative, vulnerable, stupid, weak. Butch does not mean insensitive, thick-headed, macho, violent, emotionally stunted, controlling. Those are sexist misconceptions, and we don’t have to use those categories that way.

b) Just because you look one way one day, doesn’t mean you can’t look a different way another day. Gender is fluid, identity categories are fluid. Unless you’re chosing to identify as one of these categories, no one else can put you into these categories for you.

So, maybe this person calling you “femme” actually does mean that they think you’re weak, controlling, etc - well, then, so what? They are inaccurate on two accounts - i) that’s not what femme means, and ii) that’s not who you are (I am assuming).

They might be implying that they think you’re a high-maintenance bitch, or a thick-headed lug, but that doesn’t mean that you are. That’s just a downright insult couched in genderphobia, and you can call them on their ignorance, not take it so personally, and move on with your life.

3. Identity vs Adjective

We severely lack language to describe gender, and since we largely perceive gender to be a spectrum of masculine/feminine, butch/femme, male/female, calling someone femme or butch is simply an adjective - a way to describe which side of the binary gender scale they are perceived to fall on.

(I wish we had names for all the gender galaxy quadrants and solar systems and orbits and such, but they’re almost too big, too multi-faceted, to categorize and map. Goodness knows that won’t stop me from trying …)

In my opinion, identity categories can only be chosen by those they are describing. I think this applies in various socially charged identities - race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality.

The only time someone calls me butch and it is an identity, not an adjective, is when I myself have chosen butch as a way to describe me.

Again, the speaker here could actually mean it as an identity - but that’s about them, not about me.

Often, describing someone as femme or butch is a simple observation of their physical style - short hair vs long hair, slacks vs a skirt, heels vs boots. (Sometimes it’s much more suble, of course, as someone wearing short hair, slacks, and boots can be seen as femme.)

Usually, I’ve found the use of this word as an adjective is not entirely inaccurate (at least, not at that particular moment). The problem is that it is implying all these other things about behavior and gender performance that are then perceived to be ongoing and permanent within that person, and that’s just not true.

This is precisely the reason why I use the words to describe someone that they chose for themselves, and if I don’t know how they identify, I don’t assume.

So, in conclusion:

It really doesn’t have to be an insult, and using those terms as an insult is, in my opinion, a sexist misunderstanding.

Just because someone else doesn’t understand these categories, doesn’t mean that you don’t - even if you reject them. No need to take it personally, no need to educate them in their misconception - just let it go, don’t let it bother you, move on.

I’m in Salt Lake City for the long weekend, so hopefully I’ll have some time to catch up on writing and these questions. Thanks for asking them! Some of them are very complex and I want to give them good thought. 

5. Mm asks: How does one (or more appropriately two) keep passion from waning in a long term monogamous relationship? It’s been done, but how?

Oh man – I won’t pretend to be the authority on this one. I have had two major long-term relationships, one for five years, one for four years, the latter of which was one of those LBD (lesbian bed death) situations. So I seem to be alright at sustaining some sort of time – though ultimately, all my relationships have ended, so I’m not sure I’ve got the secrets here.That said, I do think I have some ideas about what it is that I can and will do to sustain passion in a long-term relationship the next time I get the chance to practice.

1. Talk about sex. Talk talk talk. It’s fun! It’s sexy, it’s intimate. Let go of inhibitions and let your partner into your dirty dirty mind. Make lists of things you’d like to do. Make lists of things you’ve never done and probably would never do. Fill out sex surveys – like  the purity test, or a BDSM checklist – together.  Fill out the fill-in-the-blank questions, you may be surprised at the answers. Make a list of things you’ve done and didn’t like but might be willing to try again. Maybe this is just my compulsive list-making, but it’s useful information, and it forms a common vocabulary for you two to both discuss your wants, desires, fetishes, interests. 

2. Do sexy stuff together. Watch porn, or, if you don’t like porn (though I gotta say, dyke porn is getting better and better and better, you’re missing out if you haven’t tried out some of the recent stuff), read erotica aloud to each other. Go to sex toy shops together. Share your fantasies. Plan some elaborate fantasy scene. Explore!

3. Figure out what turns you on, and don’t be afraid to own that. Look for someone with complimentary turn-ons, or discuss your newly discovered turn-ons with your partner. It amazes me how few people really know what deeply “does it” for them, or, even moreso, who are in relationships with people they can tell about this stuff. (Oh, you should see the email I get sometimes about this.)

4. If things are working, we’ll both be growing, individually as well as together. In theory, our values will be so tightly aligned that the interests and pursuits that we meander through will keep each other interested, rather than putting distance or difficulties between us. But, that said, don’t assume the relationship will be between the same people in two, five, ten years. One of my favorite novels of all time, The Sparrow, has a quote in it that goes like this: “I’ve been married five times over the last fifty years to five different people, all of whom were named George.” We should grow and change. We just gotta give each other the freedom to grow, and recognize that that means, potentially, that we may grow apart. 

5. Ultimately, I think, it’s all about sexual openness. The people I’ve seen who have been able to sustain things long-term have been deeply open. Experiment! Try something you’ve never done, then try it again - just because you tried it once and didn’t like it doesn’t mean you’ll never like it. See which edges you can push. Take a class, take a workshop. Open up, let go.

All this advice is sounding very cliché. I don’t like giving general advice as a rule … wish I had some more specific answers for you here. Other readers? Tips for sustaining a long-term passionate relationship? Hell, if you are IN a long-term, passionate relationship, how do you do it? What makes it work?

6. Dosia asks: What would you say is the best way for a girl to approach a hot butch in a bar/at a dyke march/behind the counter in a cafe/in class? How do we make those connections — not just for sex, but for friendship? Hell, it doesn’t have to be specific to butch/femme dynamics, how does it work, this meeting other queer women?

If there’s only one piece of advice to give about starting – and maintaining – conversations with strangers, dykes or butches or femmes or friends or potential hotties or whoever – it’s this: find common ground and elevate the discussion.

My mom told me that once upon a time about my (former) hostile work environment. And I tell ya, it fucken worked.

Find common ground: that is, when you hit upon a topic with which you are both familiar, attempt to deepen it. When you discover you both like art, go inside of that – elevate the discussion. Ask another question: “what kind of art do you like?” “Have you been to that exhibit at the Met?” “Do you paint?” “What kind of medium do you use?” “What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever done?” “What do you wish you could do?” “What made you get into that?” …see what I mean? Once you hit a common topic of interest, deepen the discussion by asking as many questions as you can about the different aspects of it. It’s hard when you don’t know anything about the topic – it’s hard for me to bullshit sports, for example – but when I actually know something about it, I can ask intelligent questions that, who knows, may even compliment my own understanding of the topic.

That said: there are a few good books I’d recommend here. The Art of Conversation and, cheesy as it may sound, The Game, a memoir about pickup artistry.

Certainly there’s not just one way, and the trick is to find your own way, the way that works for you with your unique set of interests and talents. My way and your way are probably different. I know, that’s a lousy answer, but unfortunately it’s also true – what makes you interesting, what do you love to talk about? I am often talking to girls about their gender presentation at bars, and I quickly discover in that conversation which girls share a similar vocabulary for gender that I do (major turn-on), and which are performing some sort of femininity out of some sort of compulsory default (major turn-off).

Lesbians travel in packs, especially to bars, dyke marches, cafes, so it’s really difficult to actually a) gain one’s attention, b) keep one’s attention, and c) have an actual conversation of connection. That’s where the find common ground comes in, but I definitely understand that it’s hard to actually say something, hard to “break the ice,” to make contact.

I mean, I think this is hard for everybody, but particularly difficult because of the ways that lesbians stay huddled with their friends when out at social events, in public. Why do we do that? Maybe it’s a predator-pray kind of instinct, where it used to be so much more dangerous for us to be out on the town, and we remember that, as a community. There is safety in numbers, after all.From the specifically butch perspective, these are some things that would make me seriously take notice:

• Ask me to light your cigarette (even better if you then say “I don’t actually smoke, I just wanted to talk to you,” because for one, I’m an ex-smoker, and for two, smoking, as romantic as it is (sigh), will severely damage your body and that is, ultimately, a turn-off. I should add that to the list.)

• Compliment me on my gender (no, I’m serious!) – “hey, I noticed your gender from across the room.” “hey, you look like a old-school butch / faggy butch / dapper dandy / prettyboi – do you have a particular word for what it is you do?” “Your gender is quite noticeable.  You got a gender philosophy?” 

• Offer to buy me a drink. It’s an easy excuse to get somebody talking. Say, “I wouldn’t want to presume to insult your possible dominant or chivalrous abilities, but can I buy you a drink?” Boy howdy, that’d definitely get my attention. (I’d say: “No. But you can allow me the pleasure of buying you one.” And then you’d giggle, and we’d talk and flirt until I eventually took you back to your place and fucked you in the foyer. Hey wait, how’d this become a sex story?)

These are things that would absolutely appeal to me, not sure how butches-as-a-whole would really respond. But that’s all I can speak to, really, is my own experience – other butches (and any folks who don’t identify as butch): what would get your attention? Don’t be afraid to be a little bold. Lesbians rarely are, but it’s my experience that we respond extremely well to boldness.Also, after you get to talking, it’s okay not to have a plan. And it’s also okay to let your nervousness come through as charming. “Uh, that was my one idea for a conversation. Now I’m drawing a blank ‘cause you’re kinda cute.  Got any topics for discussion?”

7. Cyn asks: …

(see the first batch of answers)

8. Duck asks: Could you explain how the remaking of femininity has been “successful?”

Still working on this one ….

9. Miss Avarice asks: Have we yet figured out the subtle differences between straight girls and femmes at first glance? Does it really come down to a hunch in the end? Also, has writing SB changed you?

The only way I can say that I know the femmes from the straight girls is that, sometimes, I “just know.” And hell, I’m not even right all the time! I err on the side of caution, though, assuming someone is straight until proven otherwise – although “proven otherwise” is a broader and broader category, often as broad as “she’s talking to me, must mean she’s queer (in some form).” So yeah, it comes down to a hunch - it’s more than just a hunch though, it’s an energy. It’s gaydar, it’s a sixth sense that I can’t put my finger on. I wish I knew! I’m working on some writings on “gender energy,” we’ll see how those go.

Writing Sugarbutch has absolutely changed me. I was just looking back at where I was two years ago, and while I knew I was butch, I was so much less articulate and able to claim it in ways that I do now. Sugarbutch has been key and essential to my own personal development of gender identity. It’s plateauing a little bit, in the last year or so, but I still have some realms to explore (the “sex” part and the “relationship” part, namely). One big way Sugarbutch has measurably changed me, especially in terms of gender identity, is that I – as Sinclair – exclusively go by male pronouns. I write “Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith,” and in the few interviews I’ve had, I’ve asked to be called by the set of he/him/his. I don’t go by male pronouns in my non-pseudonymed life, though I really love being able to play with both.

It’s changed me in other ways, too, though; I’ve been able to let a persona wander free and explore lots more of that toppy/butch identity, and it’s definitely strengthened my own expression of it.

10. Zoe asks: How did you develop boundaries for your blog? How do you decide what to write about vs what to keep private? Who would you be most worried about finding it?

I established the boundaries early on, with the tagline “sex, gender, and relationship adventures” – that’s what I write about. Occasionally I get the impulse to post links, or media, or general bitchy writing, but I ask myself: is this about sex, gender, or relationships? Otherwise, no. Axed. (I suppose I should add “self-awareness” to that list, though really, usually it’s self-awareness about sex, gender, or relationships, so it applies.)

I don’t have hard rules about what to write vs what to keep private. Sometimes, a date or a situation or a new revelation just begs to be written about, and I do. It’s instinctual, I guess. Occasionally, I hesitate – usually in those situations I write it all out anyway, and then ask one of my trusty advisees to tell me whether or not it’s appropriate to post. Most often, they say no, for whatever reasons, and confirm my suspicions.

Who would I be most worried about finding Sugarbutch … I suppose I wouldn’t want my boss at work finding this blog, especially considering how many hours I spend on it while I’m at work. And while there are many of these entries I’ve written that I would send to my mother, I wouldn’t particularly wish her to find it, either – though, my family being what it is (completely non-confrontational) I’d probably never know she’d run across it.

I would never want to get an email from Callie with her comments about what I’ve said about her on this blog (note to self: when are you going to get around to password protecting the old Callie entries?). I don’t actually know for sure whether or not Callie knows about this blog. My logical self says yes, of course she does, how could she not; but, on the other hand, I can’t imagine she wouldn’t have mentioned it. I guess we had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing going on. 

I’m really open about this stuff - sex, gender, relationships - and most people in my life know that I write here. I used to keep it much more of a secret, but as it’s been developing from a personal journal blog to a more thorough non-ficiton-essay blog, I share it more and more. Plus, I spend so much time on it, I like to talk about it and bounce ideas around.

I offered up answering any question that was asked today - you can still ask a question until, oh, let’s say, midnight tonight. These are some of the answers, posted as they’re coming in.

1. muse asks: what is your archetypical, eroticized gender-performance-y, fuckable femme outfit, from head to toe, outside in?

First: nothing too tight, I prefer movement in the fabric. Especially in skirts. Something form-fitting can be lovely and fun, yes, but I so prefer the hint of thigh that comes from the swing in the fabric.

So, this is a bit fancy, the dressed-up going-out showing-off outfit. Funny how much I feel hesitant to get super specific, because I love oh-so-much the display of femme in its many forms. But if we’re talking about archetypical, eroticized, most fuckable gender performance, (gulp) here it is:

Hair - up. I don’t care how, but pulled up off the neck. For one, I love to see the lines of the neck and jaw (very sexy), but also, I want to be the one who rips your hair down, later. I remember watching Ally McBeal as a teenager and being so overwhelmed by Nelle Porter (Portia De Rossi) and the way she wore her hair - she only ever wore it up in the office, but she would sometimes take it down when she was out in the bar after hours. It was so, so powerful and sexy. I also remember reading an erotica story (S Bear Bergman’s piece called “Silver Dollar Afternoon” Best Lesbian Erotica 2006): “I fall in love with her when anyone asks her why she doesn’t wear her beautiful long hair all the way down and she says, with just a hint of coolness: “A woman’s hair is for her husband,” which makes me remember every time she has unpinned her hair for my delighted eyes and even if I’m not quite a husband I still shiver in my blue jeans without fail.” I know there are deep problems with this idea of a husband owning a wife’s hair, but I love the idea of it being so sexual, such a turn on, when a femme lets her hair down, that it’s private, saved for me and me alone.

Dress - or skirt, but something like this flirty hourglass dress from White House Black Market - not necessarily this exact dress (I’m not crazy about the bold pattern, though I can see how it’d work) but this type of shape of skirt, maybe even a little longer, below the knee, not necessarily above. Not necessarily strapless either, I just couldn’t find a good example of what I’m trying to describe other than this one. (Anyone know if there’s a particular name for this kind of skirt?) Layers of skirt are pretty fantastic, too - muse keeps making fun of me for a comment I made, something like, “but oh, it’s nice to be buried in crinoline.”

Shoes - You already know this one: the ribbons around the ankle fucken kill me. They don’t have to be too slutty, as some have told me that shoes like these are - the shoes Missy beautifully modeled are much more subtle and tasteful. (I’ve seen a few girls wearing this type of shoe around lately, but I cannot find them online - any help with links?) Strappy sandals work too. I prefer a couple inches of heels, though honestly, it’s more about how the sole of the shoe - the heel - fits in my hand.

Underneath - bare legs with some of those soft, thin thin thin panties that practically feel like skin, or a garter belt & stockings of any damn variety (preferably without undies). Those panties Belle modeled with the lacing up the back was also particularly impressive, but to tell the truth, aside from a thigh-high stockings of any sort, a garter belt, or freshly shaved bare legs, the details of the lingerie are often lost on me. I prefer simple lines, things that show off the curves of the body. I’m not crazy about bows or lace, but hey, anything can be fun - and everything is so pleasing, by the time we’re at the point where my hands have removed the rest of this lovely outfit.

2. green-eyed girl asks: Is there something that you have really wanted to do sexually but haven’t yet? What is it?

Two things come to mind - tantra, and some of the heavier topping skills. For example, I’d like to learn how to throw a singletail, I’d like to learn how to do play-piercing, I’d like to play (more than I have) with knives.

Both of these things require a longer-term lover who I deeply trust, and honestly, I’ve never actually had someone I could do that with.

3. saintchick asks: Can you please list a new & improved sex music mix? I know that you are dying to update it. Also what perfume is to be worn with above said outfit?

I’ll have to tell you about my updated sexmix from home later, but I off the top of my head: I’ve distinguished between a “sexmix,” which is usually really damn hot songs about sex or which sound like sex (Sexual Animals by Sarah Fimm, that techno French Kiss song, Sexyback - yeah, I said it) and a mix of songs that I want to fuck to, which are often much more subtle, and about crooning voices and excellent rhythm. Right now, my fucking mix technique is a shuffled playlist of many different albums, including Me’Shell N’degeOcello’s Bitter, as much Morphine as I have on my hard drive, and Chris Isaak’s album Heart Shaped World.

I’ll show you my revised sexmix later.

Perfume - I don’t have a specific preference to one scent. Everybody is so distinct, and even the same perfume smells different on two different people. But I do love a signature scent, so whatever you find and like, wear it - every day, continuously, for a long period, like a year at least. Then, eventually, even if you no longer wear that perfume, if I smell that perfume again, it’ll remind me of that time period. I love that creation of sense memory.

I’m not crazy about getting a mouthful of perfume while kissing your neck; not sure if there’s a better place to apply it (behind the ear?) or not - we should ask a perfume expert about this. Some girls do tend to do this more than others - or perhaps their perfume just tastes worse. Sometimes it unfortunately can be quite the buzzkill.

4. leo asked: i have a question about butch identity. you’ve written so eloquently about the concerns you faced in reconciling feminism and your gender identity, and especially about rejecting misogyny as a necessary element of masculinity. but you’ve also written that you wanted to throw up (i think?) when someone first called you butch. was that all about feminism? if not, what other feelings (positive or negative) and concerns have been central to the development of your sense of butch identity/female masculinity? did it frighten you at all, apart from the feminism issue, or was it love at first sight, or some combination?

See ask me anything: about butch identity.

5. Mm asks: How does one (or more appropriately two) keep passion from waning in a long term monogamous relationship? It’s been done, but how?

…

6. Dosia asks: What would you say is the best way for a girl to approach a hot butch in a bar/at a dyke march/behind the counter in a cafe/in class? How do we make those connections — not just for sex, but for friendship? Hell, it doesn’t have to be specific to butch/femme dynamics, how does it work, this meeting other queer women?

…

7. Cyn asks: Do you have a day job and what is it? Yes - sadly, Sugarbutch doesn’t support me (yet). I work as a graphic designer at a finance firm in Midtown Manhattan, so I commute into the city with the nine-to-five office crowd, in my almost-blending-in business casual.

Who is your fav band/musical artist? I am a very big Tori Amos fan (at perhaps some points in my past the word “fanatic” may’ve been more appropriate). My top artists (according to Last.fm) are Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Patty Griffin, Ani Difranco, Morphine, KD Lang, Ingrid Michaelson, Jack Johnson, Joshua Radin, Melissa Ferrick, Imogen Heap, Kinnie Starr, Regina Spektor, Holly Williams, Erin McKeown, the Beatles - and that about covers it. I’m a bit of a music collector, though, and in fact have over 10,000 tracks in my iTunes library recently.

What is your fave dyke/queer blog? I’ve been reading Pure as the Driven Slush by Heather Corinna for years, and have had a crush on her for at least as long. She’s femme, partnered with a guy for the past few years, and completely brilliant. She doesn’t update much anymore but she’s still one of my top queer blogs ever. I aspire to write like Mark Morford’s column (he’s queer, isn’t he? I’m pretty sure. If he’s not, he’s an honorary queer). Those are blogs I’ve been reading for years - more recently, I particularly enjoy Dorothy Surrenders and Lesbian Dad. I don’t read many good gay boy blogs - any recommendations?

Why, as a butch, do you … post butch eye candy on your site? Do you know/believe most of your readers to want/desire butch eye candy? The butch eye candy is, at least in part, about my own ego, because femme readers fawn over the lovely butches, and I breathe a sigh of relief in the validation and desirability of displays female masculinity. Yes, the majority of my readers (or, at least, the majority of the readers who are in contact with me) are femme-identified in some way (perhaps I’ll do a survey one of these days), and they do seem to appreciate the eye candy.

The reasons I started featuring eye candy, though, are specific: there was a particularly nasty thread on New York Craigslist a while back bashing butches - and all masculine-leaning lesbians - and so, posting photos of the butch aesthetic started as a way to celebrate the displays of masculinity. Eye candy got such great feedback, though, that I pursued it, turning it into a regular feature. I especially liked when my straight female audience started emailing me all hot-&-bothered under the collar, saying how hot the eye candy photos are … my response is twofold: “Yes! That’s right!” and also, “Hey wait! There’s not enough butch to go around, we’re for the femmes, dammit.”

8. Duck asks: Could you explain how the remaking of femininity has been “successful?”

…

Man, these are good questions! I’ll keep working on the answers, didn’t have time to do any writing tonight. Will post these tomorrow.

me: I want to smack your ass
her: that’s exciting to me. how do you feel when you’re doing that?
me: strong, powerful. hard and wanting.
me: but also? completely inadeuqate and in awe of such beauty.
her: that’s incredibly sweet …
me: more in awe than inadequate; in reverence.

That moment of inadequacy is so hard to describe (especially via text message, what was I thinking?) - it’s less about the hierarchy between us or my own self-worth (that ‘inadequate’ implies) as it is about awe and reverance, like looking at the Milky Way and witnessing its spinning, a deep wonder at the beauty before me - and then a deep desire to bite into a destroy something so precious.

What is that impulse? My mom, who works with elementary school kids, speaks of it often - spending a few hours on a beach building a sand castle or a rock pattern only to have some of the fourth grade boys come trampling through and destroy it all. Sure, maybe once in a while there is a girl who does this - and sure, there are boys who never would (do forgive my oversimplification of gender roles here) - but by and large, the kids who do this are boys, and boys alone.

It reminds me of what I’ve read in feminist scholarship about pre-Christian matriarchal and goddess-centered cultures of which we have so little record. Some theories discuss how men were (and still are) so much in awe of a woman’s strength and power in sexuality that their impulse was to put it under lock and key, to control, to regulate. What they could not have themselves, they longed to own, occupy, colonize.

And in moments like my date on Saturday night, with girls like her, I deeply understand this feeling.

What is that? Where does that come from? It is similar to the impulse of destruction I’ve hinted at, the witness of something so perfect, so flawless and lovely, so fresh and baby-green and precious, trembling with new life like the leaves on the trees right now, that after a moment of quiet awe and appreciation I want to caress it, touch my hand gently to it, then wrap my fingers closed around it and squeeze the life out until I hear the last gasp of breath. I want to rip it from it’s branch like meat from a bone.

I don’t like this impulse much, I’m suspicious of it. I’m a pacifist, a feminist - but I’m also a sadist. I get off on the intentional release of pain. That also makes me a healer.

I have control of this impulse, to a point. I don’t actually crush baby leaves, or destroy flowers or people. But there have been times, that I can count on one hand, where I’ve been so deeply in sync with a lover, where they’ve sensed this impulse in me and provoked it, where I’ve nearly tipped over the edge and given in. I don’t really know what would happen inside of it, I’ve never trusted someone else - or myself - enough to find out.

Maybe this is one of the ways that I seek balance on a fairly extreme scale.

This too is why I like classic femininity in my lovers, in femmes: I want to see that supposed innocence. It riles me up, incites in me this impulse to take, to conquer, to overthrow, to destroy.

Consensually, and with such reverance and care, of course, of course.

You:

Tree-climbing dirty jeans and sneakers femme. Frisbee in the park and a picnic femme. Jogging in the rain femme. Dancing sober all night femme. Occasional martinis at home because it’s Tuesday femme. The come-fuck-me-now-eyes femme. Take me down femme. Turn over now femme. High heel shopping on a Saturday with lattes femme. Custom made jewelry femme. Beliefs and convictions and spiritual femme. Deep values of care and kindness femme. Recognition of your own shit femme. Able to articulate where you’re coming from femme. High sex drive femme. Occasionally needs to get roughed up femme. Always has a safeword femme. Just as comfortable in Chucks as you are in Maddens femme. Garter belt femme. Toolbelt femme. Brings me to my knees femme.

Me:

Chivalrous feminist butch. Suit coats and ties and wingtips butch, khakis and polos at work butch. Boycut #4 butch. Takes you out, then takes you down butch. Up against the wall in dirty alleys butch. Under the table at a fancy restaurant butch. Knows how to wield a paddle butch. Knows how to drive a stick butch. Packs most weekends butch. Always has a pen and a rock on me butch. Carries your shopping bags, opens your doors, offers my jacket butch. Stays up late talking or fucking or both butch. Love notes at work butch. Butler and Halberstam and Rednour and Hollibaugh and Bergman and Califia and Queen butch. Rich and Clifton and Siken and Oliver and Hafiz and Ackerman and Doty butch. Dapper dandy faggy butch. Hardcore respectful high butch.

Us:

Slow and steady love. Intentional, honest, and kind love. Responsible, passionate love. Both grounded and floating love. For each other and for ourselves love. Able to walk away at any time and be okay love, but we don’t, we stay because we want to love.

(I haven’t yet given up that you are out there.)

A few weeks back, Muse & I went to a meditation group and I held her jacket for her when we were heading outside. She dipped down to let me more easily slide the coat up onto her shoulders, and I laughed.

“You’re not supposed to move,” I said. “Just let me do the work. This chivalry thing is designed to make you look good.”

She laughed too. “Ah, right. How would I know that? Nobody holds my coat for me. You’re bringing butch back.”

I like that. I like the alliteration, three b’s in a row, and the second epitrite of poetic meter in the phrasing. I really can’t take credit for bringing butch back - honestly, I don’t think it ever went anywhere, I think if anything it just went a bit underground during the gay and women’s rights movements, and many folks are now reimerging to problematize and celebrate gender, myself included. And youth these days are more open to gender and sexuality differences than we ever have been, so aside from some old-school activists coming out of the woodwork, the youth also have a hand in opening up these conversations, refusing to be limited by labels or definitions, and yet finding value in the historical contexts of labels and words as well.

Chivalry is deeply feminist to me. When in femmes, I expect femininity to be deliberate, done with the whole knowledge of the compulsory heteronormative restrictions which dictate that women must be and do certain things, particular that we must wear high heels, delicate cloth, restrictive clothing. Femininity is not made for comfort or movement, it is made to accentuate the sexualization of a woman’s body - and that’s why things like holding her doors open (so she doesn’t dirty her white gloves or expensive manicure), pulling her chair out (so she doesn’t have to awkwardly move a bulky piece of furniture, and risk getting it caught on her skirt or stockings and ripping something) or holding her coat (so she doesn’t have to reach around and risk ripping the tight seams in her shoulders or upper back) are necessary to me, as an acknowledgement of how restrictive femininity can be, and of how difficult it is to walk around the world in these clothes, as a celebration of the beauty of femininity on the body, and with deep respect for the courage to costume and perform femme to begin with.

There’s a long history of these gender roles, these accentuations of the body as a flirtation, as a mating ritual, as peacocking, to attempt to attract a lover.

All this is to say, I’m really not taking credit for “bringing butch back.” But I like the phrasing, and I’d like to think that I’m encouraging it. I’ve written it before (& I’ll write it again): I would never tell someone what their identity is, I would always wait for them to tell me how they choose to identify. But because I’ve found such play and liberation and fun and self-empowerment inside of butch, I do want to encourage and support it.

So, I made a masthead. Those are my hands and the bird tie, in a portrait taken last summer by Bill Wadman. With a nod to dooce, in theory the mastheads will rotate monthly with a different tagline. 

I tend to follow the wheel of the year, so I wish you a happy spring equinox today:

The Spring Equinox celebrates the return of life and growth to the thawing earth.  For the first time since the Fall Equinox, the time of light and dark in a single day are equal. From this day forth, Spring will arrive, and with her, a wild spurt of growth begins. Shoots of young grass appear, leaves sprout on trees, birds and their songs return. Winter and the dark time have finally been put behind us, and the season of growth has begun. This holiday is truly a celebration of life and nature.

Since the Spring Equinox represents new life and growth, this is the perfect holiday for planting seeds of your own on the path of your life.  New ventures may be aided by the spirit of life and growth that abound, and many people decorate eggs at this time with symbols of fertility. All is new and possible. In addition, this holiday is an ideal time to break the last of the chains that may halt our growth.

So that’s what I’m thinking about today: what chains may be halting my own growth, and how to let them instead be little sprigs of pure green.

butch/femme couple, photo by Heather Corinna
Shannon says it’s her “favorite photo of butch & femme”

I’ve been following Heather Corinna online for quite a few years now - she’s practically infamous for her self-portraits, her personal online journal, her sex-positive educational resources. I still haven’t ever met her - she moved to Seattle just after I moved from Seattle to New York City, and while she knows some of the same folks that I do, our paths have just never quite crossed. Needless to say, though, after following her work for all these years, she still gives me that butterflies-in-my-stomach celebrity feeling - I’d probably be too shy to ever actually have a conversation with her, I’d get all tongue-tied and flustered. Ah, femmes.

Figleaf did an interesting experiment with Google over on Real Adult Sex, putting in “attractive,” “beautiful,” and “worthy” along with “man” or “woman” and comparing results.

He wrote about what sparked this idea, saying he noticed a particularly attractive woman:

I thought it must be inconvenient to attract so much attention, and then wondered what it would be like if I could attract that kind of corner-of-the-eye attention, and then I started thinking about the old “men first initiate, women then decide” courtship convention and wondering about how that creates a perhaps unnecessary imposition on women to attract attention (since they weren’t allowed to simply ask for phone numbers). […]

[G]rowing up male it’s unspoken but totally obvious that women are about attracting us; meanwhile we grow up blind to the also-unspoken molding to be worthy. The climax of the Sleeping Beauty fable says it all: she’s not only beautiful but *in a coma!* He needs his shining armor to reach her through the thorn-overgrown castle. His kiss awakens her.

Man o man. Very well said. This makes my head spin a little, and strikes me as relevant to this discussion about femmes passing that we’ve been having lately - particularly, to answer the question of why femmes attract male attention, which leads to the sometimes-necessary conversation of outing onesself, which leads to the potentially dangerous situation of having been seen as ‘deceptive.’

Of course, it’s because femininity is seen as an invitation, a deliberate request for male attention.

(And this is precisely why using femininity to attract other women is a subversive identity. It messes with the entire premise, the entire purpose, of gender roles.)

Even though we’ve come a long way, baby, and women can now ask for phone numbers, can come on to men, can wear trousers! can vote!, some of these old subscriptions about how men and women must work are still carved deep into our subconsciousnesses. And one of those things is that the purpose of femininity is to attract men, male attention, the male gaze, the general hetero mating process.

So really, hitting on a feminine girl - queer or married or otherwise - taking how she looks as an invitation - is a form of heterosexism. It’s the foundation of the “she asked for it” defense.

Of course, some girls want to be hit on. I don’t mean to discount that femininity is used for attention - it’s a powerful tool that women (and some men, yes?) have in this heterosexist society. And most people are flattered to be noticed if the hitting on is done with respect, right? I mean, it’s a compliment - the problems arise when the guy (or whomever is doing the hitting-on) is relentless, won’t let up, pushes boundaries and doesn’t take hints. I suppose this is the place where the hit-ee needs to be firm and direct, as opposed to kind, though of course that doesn’t always work.

Maybe this small insight seems obvious - sure seems obvious to me, now that I am writing it out - but I appreciated the sociological perspective Figleaf added to my explorations of the subject.

Happy birthday, Belle! 

 I finally dug up this part three of “The Last Time I Saw Belle” posts (that should really be called “The Last Time I Fucked Belle,” as I’ve seen her a few times since then) that I was working on back in December. See part one, where I watch her get tattooed and get hard watching her in pain, and part two, where she unbuckles my belt and jeans with her mouth before blowing me, if you want to refresh your memory of what happened.

“Fuck me,” she gasped into my ear, on her back, legs open, my fingers already slid inside her panties and jeans, still on. “I want your cock.”

I lifted myself to my knees, laying between her legs, and gripped my cock, stroked it a little. “Do you have a condom?”

“Uh … ” her face was apologetic.

“Really?!” I swore I’d leave one in my wallet for moments like this. Dykes do not always remember we should use them with our toys - and I always use one with my (now infamous) favorite packing cock (it’s porous, so not sterilizable).

We laughed. I slid off the bed and began to locate my sweater and polo shirt, now scattered. “I’ll go to the bodega.”

“No, no. My neighbor’s still around, I bet he has some.”

“Uh, what?” He so saw me come into her apartment with her. Would he know why we needed it? That was a little too … exposing.

“He’s grateful we shared the wine with him. He’ll have some.”

“C’mon, no way. I’ll go get some.”

She gave me a coy look. “Don’t you go anywhere.”

“Look, I’m already dressed,” I said, picking up one boot after sliding my swater on.

She was still topless and smirked at me. “Maybe. But I’m faster.” She zipped her jeans and darted for the door, arms folded over her large round breasts, hands over her nipples. I was too surprised to stop her.

Laughing, topless, still holding her hands over her nipples, she came back in a minute later, and tossed one wrapped NYC condom to me.

“You’re amazing,” I said, ripping it open, laughing, embarrassed, surprised at her ability to go after what she wants so boldly. “… But we may need more than one.”

I unzipped again and pulled out my cock, slid the condom on easily. It felt swollen and thick. She’d gone out there topless for this. Made me want to take her out into the courtyard of her apartment building and fuck her, hard, make her come long and loud, make her scream fuck me, fuck me, and hear her say please in that delicious begging voice she gets when she is hot and frustrated. A whine, but not annoyingly so. A plea. So soft and vulnerable. It thrums against something deep in my pelvis, something hard, that wants to go into that same voice that says please and make her sob.

I tore off her jeans, a little rougher than I’d meant to, and she slid her thighs around my waist.

We fucked until we were sweaty, sticky in places, nude, panting on her bed, both of us laying back, looking up at the ceiling, catching our breath.

She turned onto her knees and began backing off the bed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked, low-voiced.

“You’re going to fuck me, bent over like this,” she answered, hips swaying a little, toes on the ground, arms out in front of her, bent over the bed.

I groaned, slid off the bed, and took hold of her hips, slid my fingers hard inside her. The condom was spent, hung limp from my cock. I fingered her hard, pressed my way inside her, made her come once but didn’t let up, twice, three times, before letting her collapse on the bed.

And that was the last time I fucked Belle.