(Untitled)

[jbmcdragon]

So, I was going to write today. Instead I got up, feeling all warm and fuzzy and awesome from A) butch/femme discoveries of last night and B) an awesome conversation I had with DK last night. I went to the gym and spent the whole time thinking/daydreaming about femme and butch and pretty much just glorying in, "Hey! Look! There are other people

Comments

[trishalynn]

Did I ever recommend "Revolutionary Girl Utena" to you? Because if not... y'all need to see it. Because I kinda see how you're Utena-like.

*grins, ducks and runs from Friends of JB who have seen Utena and might not agree*

[jbmcdragon]

*laughs!* Okay, I wiki'ed it, and apparently the manga and the anime are very different. Which did you mean? I may have to go look... ;-D

J

[trishalynn]

I only know about the anime--of which I have the entire series and the movie (which is SO full of crack)--and here's where I see that you're like Utena.

The mythos is that when Utena was a child, she was "rescued" from something by a prince who said to her that she should never lose her sense of nobility and that he would return for her one day. She waited and waited for that prince, but while doing so realized that maybe in order to find him, she should become a prince, too! "But was that really such a good idea...?" goes the tagline at the very end before the opening theme begins.

All throughout the anime series, we see Utena struggle with gender roles because she's forced to become this strange girl's protector, has a female best friend who has a crush on her, ends up becoming ensnared and enamored of two guys who she thinks are the prince she's been waiting for, and also ends up having deeper feeling towards the strange girl who she doesn't even like at first because she's so girly and meek... or so you think.

[beachlass]

I sent Nezu a book called Femmes of Power - get her to show you it.

There was this completely a-ha moment for me (well, lots more than one) - about butch/femme dynamics, just a short description about how attraction to butch women can be this amazing gut-punch feeling of knowing you're toast.

[jbmcdragon]

*grins* I may buy that book myself, if it's half what you and Nezu say!

And I am totally toast. TOTALLY.

J

[oanja]

Huh. This was really interesting to read because I haven't really thought about butch/femme roles before. Somehow I had this idea that in a lesbian relationship people would be pretty much equal. ^_^; My whole experience with things 'lesbian' is limited to watching the first season of the 'L-word' though so no wonder I didn't really know anything...

I went from your journal to the links you gave and then just google'd the topic because I was fascinated. After reading some I was also sort of put off by some aspects of 'being' butch, especially some comments butch identified women made on this one blog; like how they would never let a femme woman pay for anything on a date etc. It seemed like such a sexist attitude! I was shocked. Coming from a man those comments would have been considered chauvinistic. (you live and learn I guess)

*cough* sorry didn't mean to ramble about this, especially when it doesn't even relate to your original topic that much. >_<

I really want to read this butch/femme story!

[jbmcdragon]

*laughs* I had that idea too, and even though I like being equal, I also really like leaning on someone, and man, the thought of being leaned on half the time in the way I lean was exhausting. >.< I can support people in other ways, but... I don't know, it's hard to explain especially without sounding totally sexist. I'm still thinking about it. ;-D

Being butch is like anything else -- there are a lot of people with a lot of different ideas! I would certainly not want to date someone who was a chauvinist, male or female! There's a couple of good links to read that I really like on being butch, such as A Butch Roadmap by Ivan Coyote (who is my hero, in that sense that I am not butch but Ivan is awesome), and I think more applicable to this discussion, the first chapter of What Is Butch by S. Bear Bergman (it's short!). I like that last one especially, because it really highlights that there is no one definition. So, yeah, some butches are chauvinists: so are some men. We just avoid those ones, and remember that everyone brings their