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Originally Posted by Miss Tick
Well the problem I see with butch and femme as the language used exclusively without the precursor of masculine and feminine is that the terms butch/femme together as a dynamic and butch and femme separately as individuals already comes with preconceived notions and lots of baggage. If you are looking for vocabulary that can assist with dropping or unlearning the assumption that the dynamic of butch/femme is about masculine and feminine queered then I really think you need terminology that is not already rife with meaning.
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I don't think so. If we look at butch/femme in the 50's and 60's, then yes it's got a shit ton of baggage. 30's/40's butch/femme a little less so, and post 90's butch/femme then definitely much, much less so.
You do make a good distinction, though, that definitely adds to the thread: butch or femme individuals vs. the butch/femme dynamic. Evidently one can come to shape the other (the individual and how the individual identity exists vs. how it exists within a relationship).
Personally, using that distinction that you made, I think we might be at a point, as a community, where we tend to drop masculine/feminine assumptions moreso as far as individual butches and femmes (though we still have a lot of work to do, it seems, as far as dropping generalizations) who specifically state that they don't fit the stereotype, but that we maintain that rigidity more when it comes to defining the dynamic itself. As though somehow the huge individual diversity got detached from the dynamic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Tick
I think they are controlled enough terms that if you are looking for a way to identify and/or understand yourself and others that does not rely on an understanding of traits and characteristics directly related to the traits and characteristics understood as masculine or feminine you might want to look elsewhere.
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Hmm...I don't think so. Even on this forum we've seen members pop up who talk about how they've felt that butch fits them, but that they have these characteristics and these characteristics that doesn't make them feel traditionally butch. I think it was controlled, but I think the community is making some effort to undo that. At least on an individual to individual basis (versus talking about generalizations).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Tick
Is that not the same as masculinity queered and femininity queered? Is that not what people mean when they speak of how hot they think masculinity in a female body is? Or how femmes queer femininity and find it so much more comfortable when it is in a queer context rather than in a heterosexual one?
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That's not the way I see it. When I see people talk about how femmes queer femininity/butches queer masculinity, I still see an underlying comparison or presupposition of an "original"...that there is some kind of original masculine/feminine form to be queered to begin with. If there wasn't, then we wouldn't be queering it. The very fact that it is queered means that there is a form that is unqueered, and that fact that one is queered and the other unqueered suggests original vs. queered.