Quote:
Originally Posted by Medusa
I think Im getting stuck on the intimacy.
I asked myself how I would feel if the person making this comment was a random stranger on the street.
I'd be pissed.
The fact that it is her partner making this comment makes me feel as if there is intimate knowledge and intimate boundaries between them that I dont have a right to impose upon.
Where is the line? Is there an intersection between fighting for the visibility of masculine women by calling out comments such as these and taking comments such as these as intimate words to and about people who are partnered no matter their gender?
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Dusa - it's not about the individual identity for me or about the intimate relationship. I'm not concerned with their identities or their relationship. For me, it's about the paucity of language and images, the assumption that only men/male can be masculine, and all that that implies about views of women's genders and sexualities in society, culture and communities, including queer ones. Even if Nixon's partner is not a woman, the statment is minimizing and dismissive of the reality and complexity of butch women's lives -- because her partner is certainly
seen in the world as a woman. Except now she is seen as a man with boobs.
I don't hold Nixon responsible for the fact that there are such narrow visions of what women are, and so few ways to describe the lives of women that fall outside of cultural norms, but it saddens me that she has to use this kind of tired, (and yes, sexist, misogynistic, and homophobic) remark to describe her partner.
Heart