[CherylNYC]

I'm not butch so I can only answer from my own perspective as a tough, combative femme. Many years ago, long before I knew myself better, I presented more androgynously and had a few femme-ish girlfriends. Once I was busy kissing one of those long-ago, somewhat femme-er than me girlfriends goodbye at the subway when a nasty dude yelled something very threatening at us. I promptly gave him the finger with a hand just freed from embracing the gf. I did NOT stop kissing her. A few busy NYers rushing for the subway snickered. At the stupid, nasty dude. I was fully prepared for the physical altercation that never happened.

There's no way to know exactly why I got away with that one. It could have just been that we're New Yorkers and it was rush hour, but I thought then, and am more sure now, that if I had looked more traditionally butch I would have faced a far more hostile audience. We were young, white, long haired girls, so we had tremendous privilege. Using my acknowledged privilege to challenge bigots made me feel really powerful. Yes, I just wanted to kiss my gf goodbye at the subway like anyone else, but it added frisson to do it AND say F-YOU to a bigot.

I understand that it's very different outside of bigger cities, and particularly outside of THIS big city, but even in more remote areas PDA is a lot less shocking for many these days because of TV. When the above incident happened the number of same-sex PDA events that had been portrayed on TV were so small that we all knew them and could discuss them in one short, critical conversation.

It's likely that many of us are still behaving in ways that haven't changed with our changing environments. If we were beaten up for PDA in our youth, or taught that a beating was likely, that would have had a lasting influence.

Do I think that butches have had to deal with the actual beatings in a way that I haven't? HELL yeah. And I honour them for it.