"Butch" and "Femme" - Truly Antiquated Terms or More Marginalization?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Gemme

I never invalidated what you were saying. I was saying that using that vernacular in terms of myself and what I was explaining was not accurate. And it's not. It never will be, no matter how many people come in and say that it's right for them, it's not right for me, and that's what I was saying.

The term lesbian automatically means homosexual for you. Good. Looking at it the opposite way, for me, is not true. It's not good for me. As a homosexual, I am NOT automatically a lesbian. That's how I look at it.

I'll admit, various theories of language/language games are not my forte' but I'm confused how this would work. You say you are a homosexual. I'm assuming you are female. Since the working definition of the word lesbian is female homosexual, I'm curious how you get from A to B. I recognize that you do not particularly care for the term 'lesbian' as it might be applied to you but I'm confused about how that changes the functional definition of the word.

It would be like my saying "I'm not black (or African-American)." Now, my genetic parents, as far as I am aware, were both black (I don't KNOW this). My phenotype (physical traits) are all within the range for black people. My skin is brown, my lips full, my nose broad, my hair kinky (tightly curled). By any objective measure, I fit the phenotypic description of 'black' (or African-American).

Perhaps an even better example would be if I claimed that I was not an English speaker. Although I do not read, write or speak any other language as fluent as English and it is my mother tongue, I am not an English speaker. That would, it seems to me, to stretch the common understanding of the phrase 'English speaker' beyond the breaking point. When we do that kind of violence to language we make communication more difficult than it already is.

Cheers
Aj